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THE RELIGION OF POWER 



HARRIS E. KIRK. D.D 



THE SPRUNT LECTURES 

DELIVERED AT 
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
BICHMOND, VIRGINIA, 1916 



THE RELIGION 
OF POWER 



A STUDY OF CHRISTIANITY IN RELA- 
TION TO THE QUEST FOR SALVATION IN , 
THE GR.ECO-ROMAN WORLD, AND ITS 
SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE PRESENT AGE 



BY 

HARRIS E. KIRK, D.D. 






HODDER AND STOUGHTON 

NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



ys3 



Copyright, 1916, 
By GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



l9 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 

OCT 23 1916 



©CU446003 



TO 

MY WIFE, 

BEST FKIEND, FAITHFUL CRITIC 
AND FELLOW WORKER. 



THE JAMES SPRUNT LECTURES 

In 1911, Mr. James Sprunt of Wilmington, 
North Carolina, gave to the Trustees of Union 
Theological Seminary, in Virginia, the simi of 
thirty thousand dollars, for the purpose of es- 
tablishing a perpetual lectureship, which would 
enable the institution to secure from time to time 
the services of distinguished ministers and authori- 
tative scholars, outside the regular Faculty, as 
special lecturers on subjects connected with va- 
rious departments of Christian thought and 
Christian work. The lecturers are chosen by the 
Faculty of the Seminary and a committee of the 
Board of Trustees, and the lectures are published 
after their delivery in accordance with a contract 
between the lecturer and these representatives of 
the institution. The fifth series of lectures on 
this foundation is presented in this volume. 
Walter W. Moore, President. 



VH 



PREFACE 

This book is the outcome of personal experience. 
When I began my ministry eighteen years ago, I 
was quite content to preach what I had been 
taught to beheve, but when the need for a more 
intimate appropriation of truth became urgent, I 
sought to gratify it in some form of philosophy, 
being willing for the most part to translate his- 
torical conceptions of rehgion into the more or 
less complex terms of modern thought. 

It soon became evident, however, that this was 
superficial. There was need for a firmer hold on 
truth, especialljr for an appreciation of the stabi- 
lising influence of the great past; and my mind 
turned towards the causal significance of Chris- 
tianity. 

This book is the result of a fresh endeavour 
to interpret Christian experience for myself; and 
whatever degree of confidence is imparted to the 
central affirmations of this course of lectures is 
due to a series of convictions rooted and grounded 
in historic reality. I believe that Christianity is 
the religion of power because I have experienced 

ix 



X PREFACE 

it in my own life. I believe that Jesus Christ is 
the Son of God and that His gospel is the final 
and complete adjustment of the human spirit to 
its eternal relationships. 

Naturally, what we have found to be true for 
ourselves we believe to be of some importance to 
others. In this spirit I send forth this book in 
the hope that it may aid inquiring minds to find 
Him who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 

This book is intimately associated with five good 
friends. I should like in this place to acknowledge 
my indebtedness to Alfred H. Barr, John Mc- 
Dowell and John S. Conning, for sympathy and 
advice ; to Arthur W. Hawks, Jr., for reading the 
proofs, and to James H. Taylor for preparing the 
index. 

H. E. K. 

The Manse, Franklin Street Presbyterian Church, 
Baltimore, September, 191 6. 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTORY 

LECTURE PAGE 

I. The Westward Movement of Christianity 15 

PART ONE: THE QUEST FOR SAFE 
CONDUCT 

11. The Ritual Quest for Safe Conduct . . 49 

III. The Ethical Quest Among the Greeks . 81 

IV. The Ethical Quest Among the Romans . 115 
V. The Legal Quest Among the Jews . . 147 

PART TWO: THE RELIGION OF 
POWER 

VI. Christianity as the Religion of Power . 177 

VII. Christianity as a Justifying Power . . 209 

VIII. Christianity as a Constructive Power . 239 

CONCLUSION 
IX. The Finality of Christianity . . . 271 

Index 309 



a 



INTRODUCTORY 



LECTURE I 

THE WESTWAED MOVEMENT OF CHEISTIANITT 



LECTURE I 

THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF CHEISTIANIT'St 

The purpose of this course of lectures is to study 
Christianity as the religion of power in relation 
to its Grffico-Roman background. In shaping 
the materials I have kept steadily in mind the 
requirements of a number of people who desire 
to put behind the sentiments and impulses of re- 
ligious experience a body of rich and deep con- 
viction. 

The need of religious convictions develops from 
experience. We begin with a simple and un- 
critical faith dn the facts of Christianity as they 
are presented to us by environment. The influ- 
ence of the home and the church usually deter- 
mines such matters for us. But as experience de- 
velops, it brings our faith into comparison with 
the beliefs and life of the world, and this makes a 
fresh interpretation necessary. We begin to ask 
ourselves if what we were taught to believe is 
really true. We wish to know if there is a rea- 
sonable basis for faith, and ordinarily we seek ad- 

15 



16 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

ditional information by examining the sources of 
our experience. 

The range of such an inquiry will vary accord- 
ing to the desire of the individual, but the result 
will be a growth of convictions on what we re- 
gard as essential points. If we care to pursue the 
inquiry further we may reduce our beliefs to sys- 
tem and get theology; and if we wish to go still 
further we may extract the essence from our the- 
ology and get a creed, which would be a clear 
statement of all that we believe concerning Christ 
and Christianity. 

Most people are content with a simple faith, be- 
ing willing to follow the teaching and example of 
their religious environment. Few people become 
theologians, and very few have a definite idea of 
a personal or self-selected creed. 

There is, however, a minority that requires some- 
thing more than a simple faith. People of this 
type are obliged by their intellectual necessities to 
investigate the basal significance of experience. 
They are unable to trust so important a matter to 
impulse. They need ideas as well as emotions. 
They do not require a complete theology, but they 
must have clear cut, conscientious convictions on 
essential points. Their passion is to "get to know 
Christ." This was a Pauhne ambition and should 
be encouraged. Any one who knows this modern 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 17 

world realises the urgency and sincerity of such a 
demand. An intelligent man without religious 
convictions is as helpless as a passenger ship in 
midocean without a navigator. The nurture of 
the intelligence is as important an element in 
spiritual growth as the cultivation of the affec- 
tions or the discipline of the will. 

It is this class to which I make my appeal. 
We are in this world not simply to hold or to en^ 
joy a faith, but to propagate a faith. We are, or 
ought to be, the passionate advocates of salvation 
through Jesus Christ. But we cannot ask others 
to be Christians unless we are reasonably sure of 
our own status. It is not enough to have spirit- 
ual emotions: we must have ideas that explain 
these emotions, for without ideas faith cannot be 
propagated. Ideas are the hooks of faith that 
stick into the intelligence ; they are the framework 
around which emotions grow, and character forms. 
Naturally we believe that what is true for our- 
selves must be important for others; and if we 
have convinced ourselves that we have a reason- 
able basis for faith, we shall not hesitate to chal- 
lenge the world's intelligence in the effort to im- 
part it. 

If convictions are important, it is the better 
part of wisdom to select the best possible method 
of forming them. Shall we develop them in the 



18 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

interest of a philosophy of religion, or shape them 
round the historic facts of Christianity? Shall 
our interest lie chiefly in the relation of proposi- 
tions to each other in behalf of a system, or in a 
series of events in human history? Both methods 
are important, but I prefer the historical to the 
philosophical approach to the question, and for 
what seems to be a very practical reason. 

Whatever philosophy of religion one may hold, 
must always be determined by the view one has 
of its historic significance. We must begin with 
history. But the peculiar temptation that waits 
on philosophy is the exaggeration of theoretic 
explanations. It is easier to suit the facts of 
history to one's theory than to bring one's the- 
ory into harmony with historic facts. And if 
we adopt the historic approach, it might turn out 
that we can not only begin, but end our view of re- 
ligion in its history; we might get along without 
philosophy, because we should get an adequate 
view of religious truth from an historical stand- 
point. Most assuredly the power of religious 
conviction does not depend on one's ability to sys- 
tematise religious truth. The realism of convic- 
tion is derived from actual contact with historic 
events. For history reveals something more than 
reasons; it reveals causes; it exhibits the causal 
significance of Christianity. It shows us a re- 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 19 

ligion of power, dynamic unto the saving of souls. 
If we can shape our convictions on the causal 
aspect we may dispense with system. 

It is clear that the intelligent man of to-day is 
not asking for a complete system of religious 
truth. He cannot be interested, save in a super- 
ficial way, in a philosophy of rehgion. Philoso- 
phies of rehgion are more admired than read. 
But the modern man does believe in power; he 
knows power when he sees it, and he has a very 
clear notion that power makes history. 

It is upon the causal significance of Christian- 
ity that I wish to lay the emphasis. I am not in- 
different to its philosophy, but I beheve that ap- 
preciation of its power in history is sufficient to 
give reality and strength to faith, and to stabilise 
life in the face of many speculative problems 
which we may never be able to solve. 

And I am encom'aged to take this position by 
a recent statement of Mr. Balfour. In his Gif- 
ford lectures he has called attention to the double 
aspect of beliefs : "All beliefs have a position act- 
ually, or potentially, in a cognitive series; all be- 
liefs, again, have a position, known or unknown, 
in a causal series. All beliefs, in so far as they 
belong to the first kind of series, are elements in 
one or more collections of interdependent propo- 
sitions. They are conclusions, or premises, or 



20 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

both. All beliefs, in so far as they belong to the 
second kind of series, are elements in the tem- 
poral succession of interdependent events. They 
are causes, or effects, or both." ^ This is an im- 
portant distinction. We may regard our beliefs 
about Christianity as belonging either to a cogni- 
tive or to a causal series. Our aim may be either 
a complete system of religious truth, or an ade- 
quate interpretation of religious experience. The 
first is the legitimate object of the theologian, the 
latter is the practical demand of ordinary intelli- 
gence. The average man is not interested in the 
more or less successful attempt to systematise a 
series of interdependent propositions; but he is 
tremendously concerned with the effort to under- 
stand his relation to the causal aspect of religion. 
For whatever we may think of religious experi- 
ence one thing is clear and that is that it is caused. 
Our experience is an effect; and the greater the 
spiritual maturity, the keener is the conviction 
that we are what we are by the grace of God. 

To believe in the causal aspect of Christianity; 
to have a few clear ideas of its function in individ- 
ual experience seems to me to be the chief demand 
of the time among those whose intellectual re- 
quirements force them to seek for something more 
than a simple and uncritical faith. 

^ "Theism and Humanism," pp. 58-59- 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 21 

The power of Christianity is revealed in his- 
tory. It has produced a series of interdependent 
events in the domain of man's life, and there is al- 
ways something quite definite about history. His- 
toric events are real. Let it be frankly admitted 
(since I have no disposition to deny it) that our 
personal attitude towards the claims of Jesus 
Christ will in some measure determine our view 
of the facts of Christianity; still it remains true, 
and on this alone I wish to insist, there is a cer- 
tain fixed minimum of unchangeable fact, a defi- 
nite deposit of indestructible truth in history, on 
which to base one's conclusions. I am far from 
saying that a complete system of religious truth is 
unattainable; to many it may appear quite de- 
sirable or even necessary; but what I do main- 
tain is that we need not wait for this to become 
Christians. In my judgment we have enough in 
the history of Christianity to justify faith, and a 
closer contact with its causal significance will en- 
able us to be strong and stable believers, in spite 
of the want of a complete theory of religion. 

The most convincing facts of history are the 
ethical facts. Professor Meyers has recently de- 
fined history "as past ethics." ^ The degree in 
which the moral ideal is expressed in history, is 

^ See an interesting discussion of the idea in "History As 
Past Ethics/' chapter 1. 



ga THE RELIGION OF POWER 

the measure of our confidence in the explana- 
tions given by those who shared in the experience 
of its power. It cannot be questioned that Paul's 
account of the power that transformed his life is 
more convincing than an explanation coloured by 
present-day philosophy. For one thing, he was 
closer to the facts, and for another, his account 
resembles the one usually derived from our own 
experience. 

The Christian knows that his experience is an 
effect, and his intelligence demands some explana- 
tion of its cause. He does not ask for a complete 
theory; he wants an interpretation of the power 
that is functioning in his conscious life. 

And it is a great step in the direction of sim- 
plicity to remember that Christianity is deeply 
rooted in history ; and that its history is interpreted 
in a series of trustworthy documents written for 
the most part by those who from the first were 
experimentally acquainted with its transforming 
power. 

The need for religious conviction is met in 
the New Testament by doctrines. We may think 
of religious doctrines as belonging either to a 
cognitive or to a causal series. In the one case 
we have a series of interdependent propositions, in 
the other a series of causal explanations. 

I believe that doctrine belongs to both series. 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 23 

On the one hand doctrines are revelations of ob- 
jective truth. They may be, and ought to be 
worked up into a system, simply because they are 
organically related. The church must have a 
systematic theology, if it is to furnish adequate 
instruction to its members. In addition to theol- 
ogy the church requires a creed; but the plain 
truth is that the church does not succeed in mak- 
ing theologians of its members. Few are capable 
of understanding a theological system; and 
fewer still have ever felt the necessity of holding 
a definite credal statement of all religious beliefs. 
Most people are content to accept the creed made 
and provided by the church of their preference. 

But this conventional position by no means in- 
dicates the real attitude of the individual towards 
Christ and Christian truth. His real interest is 
not in a series of inter-related beliefs, so much as 
in the causal significance of Christianity. He is 
more interested in causes than in reasons because 
he is usually more impressed with power than with 
theories. I believe religious doctrines have this 
additional aspect. They belong not only to a 
cognitive but to a causal series. They are not 
only true, but useful, and were in some measure 
devised to meet the need of growing intelligence, 
with specific reference to this point, namely: to 
explain the function of the power which in the 



24 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

beginning had originated a divine life within the 
soul. Doctrines are descriptive of function; they 
explain how Christ's redemptive power functions 
in individual experience. 

If Christianity is the rehgion of power it will 
manifest itself in individual life. Knowledge of 
its function is necessary to a stable faith because 
it explains the utility and practical necessity of 
ideas on the main subject of religion. We do 
not know the nature of electricity ; we do not need 
to understand the theory of the dynamo, that of 
course is professional knowledge; but we must 
know something of the function of electricity if 
we are to use it safely. We must study its habits 
and learn how to control it in the interests of our 
practical needs. Now the habits of this mysteri- 
ous power are its functions. Increased knowledge 
of function means enlarged utility. Electricity 
has a lighting function, but it is capable of other 
uses. It has a heating function, it is useful 
as motive power, and above all it has a therapeu- 
tic function. The great utility of this mysteri- 
ous force is due to a growing knowledge of func- 
tion, or in other words to the doctrines of elec- 
tricity. It is even so with the power of Chris- 
tianity. It is rooted in the mysterious nature of 
the eternal God. The finite mind can never fully 
comprehend the Infinite intelligence. Theories of 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 25 

religion are limited by this essential fact. But 
stability in faith turns, not on theory, but on a 
reasonable knowledge of the functional signifi- 
cance of divine power in the experience of the 
individual. The more he knows of function, the 
stronger and more vital will be his experience. 
From this standpoint there is a vast need of teach- 
ing doctrine. I believe there is an intense desire 
among intelligent people for a clearer knowledge 
of their religious experience. The teaching of 
doctrines will meet this need, for they are descrip- 
tions of function; a knowledge of function is an 
element in a stable faith. Moreover the realisa- 
tion of the truth that Christianity is power will 
come, I think, from a functional interpretation 
of religious teaching. 

Such an interpretation will gain vividness from 
a study of the background of early Christianity. 
It is easy to contrast Christianity with the re- 
ligious and ethical views current in the Graeco- 
Roman world at the time of the Advent. The im- 
portance of such a study has long been recognised 
by scholars; I believe that such an investigation 
will prove a valuable discipline for growing Chris- 
tians. 

The study of the background brings into clear 
relief the originality of the new religion. Chris- 
tianity is not a philosophy, neither is it a ritual; 



26 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

it is fundamentally the religon of power. Its 
unique significance does not lie in the novelty of its 
ideas, but in its motive force. Its power has made 
history ; it has created and sustained a community 
of representative persons, and transmitted a tradi- 
tion which a sound Biblical criticism has never dis- 
turbed. Moreover, it has offered a Person as the 
object of faith, who is able to impart moral and 
spiritual vitality to every one who is willing to re- 
ceive Him. Man's mind craves ideas but man's 
soul longs for communion with the living God. 
We can never be content to trust ourselves to a 
series of concepts however true they may be; we 
need and must have personal contact with a Per- 
son. Jesus Christ stands there, the one luminous 
spot in the world's darkness, a fixed and inde- 
structible fact of history. He cannot be explained 
away. The philosophic tides of the world have for 
centuries surged round His base, but He stands 
out above them all like a great rock in a restless 
sea. He is the Desire of all the nations, and holds 
in His hands the key to the human heart, and is 
the final and complete adjustment of the human 
spirit to the issues of eternity. 

The chief purpose of this series is to present 
Christianity as the religion of power, as it is re- 
vealed in certain of its characteristic documents; 
to observe its function in the unique experience of 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 27 

its community life, and to set forth its originality 
as it appears on its Grgeco-Roman background. 

In the first lecture we shall consider the west- 
ward movement of Christianity. To the back- 
ground we shall devote the next four lectures, 
wherein we shall study the passion for adjustment 
between God and man, which manifested itself in 
certain historic quests for safe conduct. In one 
lecture we shall take up the conception of power 
and show how it was expressed in the resurrection 
of Jesus, and in the creation of the Christian com- 
munity. In two lectures we shall consider the 
functional aspect of three characteristic Christian 
doctrines. In the concluding lecture we shall give 
some reasons for believing in the finahty of Chris- 
tianity, and its importance for the present age. 

The study of the westward movement of Chris- 
tianity brings to our attention the interesting con- 
dition of the world at the time of the Advent. 
This movement is explained by the fact that while 
the way was closed towards the Jew, it was open 
towards Rome and the gentile world. 

The Jew was fated to mistake his destiny. God 
intended him to be a missionary of religion, but 
he persistently misconceived his calling and al- 
lowed political ambitions to confuse his spiritual 
outlook so as to preclude the possibility of ac- 
cepting his Messiah. No people have ever loved 



g8 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

freedom more than the Jewish race, yet no peo- 
ple have so profoundly confused political with 
spiritual liberty. At the time of the Advent it 
was practically impossible for the Jew to think 
of a spiritual experience apart from political free- 
dom. He wanted a Messiah whose kingdom was 
of this world, and this secular aim was respon- 
sible for his tragic failure. 

A more specific reason for the failure of Chris- 
tianity to move eastward is to be found in the 
divisions among the Jewish people. The domi- 
nant parties in church and nation were Pharisees 
and Sadducees. 

The Pharisee was a religious patriot, and his 
remarkable influence over Israel was due to the 
peculiar development of Jewish religion that fol- 
lowed the Babylonian exile. Prior to the exile 
the Jew never thought of questioning his religious 
status because he was a child of Abraham and a 
member of the covenant race; but after the exile 
religion became a more intimate and personal; 
matter. The old communal morality was set aside 
in favour of individual morality ; and with the col- 
lapse of the Jewish city-state the need of a definite 
and personal way of salvation became paramount. 
The question before the Jew was how to get in 
right relations with God, and how to keep himself 
in right relations ? The answer was given in terms 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 29 

of legal obedience to the revealed law. But since 
the law required interpretation the order of 
Scribes arose, and with them a body of oral tradi- 
tion which shortly was added to the written law, 
and this composite of revelation and tradition 
was the authoritative standard of Jewish religion. 
This tendency to exalt the law, by the end of the 
second century, B. C, had developed into the 
party of the Pharisees, who through the syna- 
gogue worship attained a vast influence over Jew- 
ish life and opinion. Believing as they did that 
spiritual freedom was conditioned by political 
freedom, the Pharisees were consistent opponents 
of foreign influences and in the time of Christ 
their ruling passion was to drive the Roman out 
of Palestine. Their patriotic ambitions tempted 
them to interpret the Messianic hope in a national 
and secular way ; they believed that Messiah's mis- 
sion would be to establish the law and nation and 
give the Jew spiritual and political authority over 
the world. It is hardly necessary to suggest how 
utterly unlike to the real kingdom of Christ this 
notion was. The complete difference between the 
ideals of Jesus and those of the Pharisees suffi- 
ciently explains why this class could not welcome 
Christianity. 

The Sadducees were religious liberals. Their 
interest in tradition was limited bv the desire to 



30 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

preserve their priestly privileges intact. Tliey 
were men of the temple just as the Pharisees were 
men of the synagogue. In politics, they were op- 
portunists. They did not object to foreign in- 
fluences ; in fact their fixed policy was to preserve 
the status quo. Above all they had no wish to 
antagonise Rome, and were willing that the nation 
endure any sort of political bondage, provided 
they were unmolested in the enjoyment of their 
privileges. The chief fear of the Pharisees was 
heresy, that of the Sadducees was sedition. The 
Pharisees opposed Christ because of His attitude 
towards the law; the Sadducees opposed Him be- 
cause His dominion threatened the political and 
ecclesiastical supremacy of their order. 

Under these circumstances it was impossible for 
either of these powerful orders to accept Chris- 
tianity. Their opposition was inevitable. At first 
they were not able to form an opinion of the 
facts; but when they did realise the drift of 
Christ's teaching they were perfectly willing to 
sacrifice Him rather than give up their preten- 
sions. These parties controlled the Jewish church 
and effectively closed the way towards Judaism. 

There was a class among the Jews deserving 
the highest consideration. They were called the 
"devout in Israel." This was the Godly remnant 
spoken of by the prophets that waited the advent 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 31 

of a spiritual Messiah; but they had little influ- 
ence on the policies of the nation. Among this 
class we find such as Simeon and Nathaniel, the 
parents of John the Baptist, and the mother of 
Jesus. They were ready to receive the Messiah 
and welcomed the missionary character of the new 
religion, but they could not vitally change the at- 
titude of the nation. 

But while the door was closed towards Judaism 
and the East, it was open towards Rome and the 
gentile world. It was a world of violent and vivid 
contrasts and its outstanding features are easily 
grasped. 

In the first place it was an age of profound 
confusion and disappointment. It was a time of 
political disenchantment. The last century be- 
fore Christ was distinguished by the breakdown 
of the Roman republic. The ancient political 
organisation was found to be inadequate for the 
new needs. The failure of the old safeguards had 
developed a wide spread feeling of insecurity in 
all departments of life, and nowhere was this so 
evident as in moral and spiritual matters. For 
several centuries the native faith had been on 
the decline. This religion was so closely identified 
with the fortunes of the state, that whatever in- 
stability appeared in political relationships was 
immediately reflected in the religious attitude. 



32 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

The Roman religion depended on the city-state; 
but as the city-state gave way to the Roman com- 
monwealth, and eventually developed into an em- 
pire, faith in the native religion was permanently 
impaired. The views of the intelligent Roman of 
the last days of the republic are reflected in the 
writings of Cicero. Cicero had no personal faith 
in the native religion, but he believed its revival 
to be a political necessity. Government needed a 
religious sanction, and politicians of Cicero's type 
were quite willing to restore the old religion; or 
even to improve it by the addition of the best ele- 
ments of current philosophies or desirable fea- 
tures of the Oriental religions which were then 
very popular in Rome. But in spite of this the 
pessimism of the time is expressed in the pas- 
sionate scepticism of Lucretius, or even in the 
gracious humanism of Virgil, that best of poets; 
while the need for stability is quite apparent in 
the strenuous efforts made by Augustus to revive 
interest in the native faith. 

In the second place it was an age of intense re- 
ligious inquiry. Eras of political disillusion have 
usually been eras of religious revival. Political 
disturbances ordinarily set men on fresh spiritual 
adventures, for where faith in government is im- 
paired the need for protection becomes acute, and 
it is natural to seek for it in religion. In the 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 33 

case of the Romans, when they could no longer 
trust themselves to the native gods, they turned 
eagerly to other and newer cults. This accounts 
for the wide spread influence of the Oriental mys- 
tery religions in the time of Christ. Magna Mater 
and Isis were especially influential. 

The intelligent classes, while not indifferent to 
religion, usually sought peace in some sort of phi- 
losophy. The philosophies of Greece, especially 
as they had been interpreted by such men as Pa- 
naetius and Posidonius, were accessible to the in- 
telligent man, and the influence of Stoicism and 
Epicureanism was far reaching. In all walks of 
life men were willing to discuss religion or re- 
ligious philosophy. It was felt that an epoch of 
history was closing; the world was on the thres- 
hold of fresh departures and every one needed 
spiritual guidance. 

These conditions make it easy to understand 
that the gentile world was ready for the Chris- 
tian propaganda, and the readiness to receive the 
new religion was aided by two factors of the first 
importance. The first factor was the influence 
of the Jew of the dispersion, the second, the re- 
ligious aspirations of God-fearing gentiles. 

The first factor directly favourable to the expan- 
sion of Christianity was the wide spread dispersion 
of the Jew. For centuries the world had been in a 



34 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

state of flux. Since Alexander's conquests peo- 
ples and races mingled freely, and when the 
Roman rule was firmly established it was almost 
as easy to travel about the world as it is to-day. 
At the Advent there were between five and eight 
milhon Jews resident in the Roman empire. The 
Jew was the most clannish of peoples, and he made 
his racial solidarity evident everywhere. Judaism 
was a '^religio Ucita' in the empire during the 
early days of the Christian propaganda. Freed 
from the burdensome restrictions thrown round 
other foreign faiths, and protected by law in the 
exercise of his peculiar forms of worship, the Jew 
naturally attained a considerable influence as a re- 
ligious factor, wherever his worship was estab- 
lished. The religious bond of the Jew was the 
synagogue. In every town and hamlet, as well 
as the metropolis, you would find the spiritual in- 
terest of the Jew centring in the synagogue. He 
always selected a commanding site for his house 
of worship, and the peculiarity of this religion 
naturally attracted the attention of the gentile 
peoples. 

The religion taught in these provincial syna- 
gogues differed in many important particulars 
from that of the Palestinian Jew. It was more 
liberal; less limited to ritual expressions and apt 
to emphasise ethical monotheism. Moreover the 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 35 

Jew revealed to that melancholy age a contented 
and on the whole a happy life. The worship of the 
true God gave him a foothold beyond time and 
he was able to stand out above his age as a strong 
and stable force. Furthermore, he was full of 
missionary zeal and laboured to propagate his faith 
among the gentiles. This faith was the expres- 
sion of the highest type of ethical monotheism 
known in those times, and the propaganda was 
aided by the Greek version of the Old Testament 
Scriptures. It is impossible to overestimate the 
importance of such a factor in preparing the way 
for Christianity. 

The second factor of importance favourable to 
the spread of the new religion was the spiritual as- 
pirations of God-fearing gentiles. This class is fre- 
quently mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, 
Paul makes specific reference to them in his speech 
at Pisidian Antioch ; Cornelius, the first uncircum- 
cised gentile admitted to the church, Lydia, the 
seller of purple, and Justus, in whose house at 
Corinth Paul organised a church, were God- 
fearers. We hear of them in Thessalonica and 
Athens. The Greeks who came to Jesus in the 
passion week probably belonged to this class. The 
centurion of the gospels, who loved his servant, was 
also of the nimiber. He is said to have loved the 
Jewish nation, and to have built them a syna- 



S6 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

gogue. They are variously described as "those 
that feared God," "those that worshipped God" ; 
sometimes as "the devout" and once as "rehgious 
proselytes." 

Up to recent times the God-fearers were iden- 
tified with proselytes of the gate, and their sig- 
nificance was not clearly recognised; but recent 
investigations have conclusively shown that they 
were not proselytes at all. They never submitted 
to the distinctive rite of circumcision, but con- 
stituted what Schurer, our chief authority, has de- 
scribed as a "fringe of devout heathenism round 
the Jewish synagogue." ^ The God- fearer never 
intended to become a regular proselyte, but he 
accepted the monotheism and ethical standards of 
the synagogue worship. In some respects he ob- 
served the ceremonial law, notably that of tithing 
or of Sabbath keeping; he gave moral and often 
material support to the Jewish propaganda, and 
in many other ways aided in the spread of ideas 
favourable to Christianity. 

But the God-fearing gentile is significant of 
much more than this. His religious aspiration 
shows that there were many in that age passion- 
ately seeking the true God. They had outgrown 
the native religion, they were too high minded to 

^ See Kirsopp Lake, "Earlier Epistles of St. Paul," pp. 
S7-40. 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 37 

fall under the sensuous spell of the Oriental cults ; 
moreover they were not content with current phi- 
losophies, but had grouped themselves round the 
Jewish synagogue, a body of receptive learners. 
They represent on gentile soil the ideal Jew after 
God's own heart and may properly be classed with 
those who were looking for the world's Saviour. 

It was from this class that the largest and most 
influential accessions to Christianity came. They 
eagerly welcomed the new faith. When Paul was 
preaching in Corinth, in spite of Jewish protests, 
the majority of the God- fearers went over to the 
new rehgion and organised a Christian church in 
the house of Justus, one of their number. What 
took place in Corinth frequently happened in 
other places. If Paul felt it important to make a 
special appeal to this class in his speech at Pisi- 
dian Antioch, it is natural to suppose that he 
would do it elsewhere. It was the wholesale de- 
sertion of these powerful auxiharies as much as 
the strangeness of the new teaching that occa- 
sioned the bitter hostility of the Jews towards the 
Christian propaganda. 

This explains the rapid spread of Christianity 
over the gentile world. Granted a people suffer- 
ing from poUtical and rehgious disillusion, in pas- 
sionate search of a way of life, and keenly inter- 
ested in religious discussions; granted an age in- 



38 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

creasingly under the influence of two powerful 
factors, such as the Jew of the dispersion and the 
God-fearing gentile, and all that was needed for 
a rapid spread of the new religion would be an 
enthusiastic presentation of its central message. 
It was the concurrence of these notable factors: 
a passionate missionary propaganda and a world 
eager for its message that carried the gospel from 
its provincial surroundings in Jerusalem to the 
heart of the world's metropolis, and transformed 
it from a small Jewish sect into a reHgion of 
conscious power and universal mission. 

The story of the westward movement is told 
in the Acts of the Apostles, a book of first rate 
historical importance not only because it is the 
only account we have of the beginnings of church 
history, but also because it was written by a man 
who had the historic sense developed in a remark- 
able degree. Recent investigations have practi- 
cally demonstrated the fact that this book was writ- 
ten by Luke, a gentile physician and companion 
of Paul, at Rome during Paul's first imprison- 
ment.^ Luke alone among New Testament writers 
had a genuine historical spirit. He is not an 
annalist but a biological historian. His aim is to 
describe a great movement and he selects his facts 

*Harnack: "Luke the Physician; Date of Acts and the 
Synoptic Gospels." Crown Theological Library. 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 39 

with special reference to its development. He was 
intensely aware of the dramatic qualities of his- 
tory, and masses his facts so as to reveal the under- 
lying principle of growth and enable the reader to 
follow the story to a logical conclusion. 

Luke's aim is to tell the story of how Chris- 
tianity moved out of Jerusalem and the Jewish 
world to become a world religion in the metropolis 
of gentile civihsation. It is a story so vividly told 
that it captures the imagination, yet of such clarity 
and massive strength as to produce in a reasonable 
mind the strongest sort of persuasion of its truth. 

The story falls into three divisions: first there 
is the stage of beginnings, centring at Jerusalem, 
in which Peter is the leader; second there is the 
stage of transition centring in Antioch of Syria, 
in which Barnabas and Saul are the leaders; and 
third there is the story of culmination centring 
at Rome, in which Paul is the leader. 

Beginning in Jerusalem on the day of Pente- 
cost, we get the primitive conception of Chris- 
tianity. The new faith is still organically related 
to the old, and the teaching is offered solely to 
Jews and proselytes under the shadow of the 
temple. The testimony of the infant church is 
given in Peter's sermon and is concerned with 
Jesus of Nazareth. This teaching was limited to 
three things : first, Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, 



40 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

second, the resurrection was proof of His Messiah- 
ship, and third, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit 
was a demonstration of Messiah's power to save. 

At first the propaganda occasioned no decided 
break with the Jewish authorities. Futile efforts 
under the lead of the Sadducees failed for want of 
support from the Pharisees. The latter were dis- 
posed to let well enough alone. Jesus was dead, 
the movement could not last, and in so far as the 
resurrection teaching was concerned, this was in 
some respects in sympathy with their own beliefs. 
The disciples seemed to be a band of mistaken re- 
formers: why not let them alone? This view was 
reflected in the speech of Gamaliel. It was true 
that the enthusiasm of the disciples was discon- 
certing, but the authorities were little disposed at 
that time to interfere. 

But an incident occurred shortly after that 
made it imperative that the two great parties in 
the Jewish church should forget their differences 
and unite to suppress the new faith. Rapid growth 
in the church occasioned a division of labour and 
certain deacons had been chosen, among whom 
was Stephen, a Jew of the dispersion, with pro- 
found insight into the radical character of the new 
religion and considerable ability as an orator. 

The speech of Stephen was the beginning of the 
period of transition and brought the infant com- 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 41 

munity to a full consciousness of the significance 
of its faith. Stephen's sermon reflects the think- 
ing of a Jew of the dispersion, who while loyal 
to ancient traditions is still broadminded and 
catholic in his view of truth. He asserted his 
belief in the divine significance of ancient tradi- 
tion. Undoubtedly both law and temple were 
divine institutions; and of course this was the 
conviction of a true child of Abraham. But he 
asserted in addition that since Jesus had come, 
both law and temple had been superseded; and 
that all that was essential to Judaism had been 
taken over into the new religion. 

The radical nature of such teaching is obvious 
since it at once set aside everything that Pharisee 
and Sadducee believed Judaism to be. The im- 
mediate effect was the martyrdom of Stephen, the 
closing up of the ranks among contending fac- 
tions, and the beginning of an organised move- 
ment to suppress the new faith. It is a dramatic 
example of poetic justice that the man selected to 
lead this campaign of extermination should have 
been destined to become the chief advocate of the 
despised religion. 

The historian proceeds to describe the effect of 
persecution on the fortunes of the infant church. 
We see the birth of missionary zeal, and the 
spread of the gospel through Samaria into Syria. 



42 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

We hear of a notable ministry of Philip, and of 
an unprecedented admission of an uncircumcised 
gentile into the membership of the church. With 
dramatic fulness, Saul's conversion is described, 
but little is said of his long retirement in Tarsus. 

Resuming the main thread of his narrative, 
Luke tells of the rapid development of the church 
in Antioch of Syria. This movement was so im- 
portant that it was deemed best to supervise it 
from Jerusalem, and Barnabas, a Cypriote Jew, 
was sent to direct the work. Barnabas was a dis- 
cerning man and from the outset had been Saul's 
friend. He now summons him from his retreat 
in Tarsus and under the joint leadership of these 
two men the church attained to such distinction 
that the disciples were first called Christians at 
Antioch. Hitherto they had been known as "peo- 
ple of the way," a sect of Judaism, but it was now 
evident that this was a mistake. 

The difference between Judaism and Christian- 
ity at once raised the question as to terms of ad- 
mission for gentiles. Were they to be admitted 
to church fellowship on terms of faith and repent- 
ance, or must they first become proselytes to 
Judaism? Cornelius it is true had entered the 
church on the simple terms of faith and repent- 
ance, but this was regarded as an exception. The 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 43 

church at Antioch had been founded on the same 
terms, but this had been done by certain name- 
less disciples without the authority of the church 
in Jerusalem. Should the authorities of the par- 
ent church insist upon the more rigid terms, or 
accept the inevitable and allow gentiles to become 
Christians without becoming prosel5i;es? 

At first the question was allowed to drift; a 
private agreement between Saul and the Jeru- 
salem authorities opened the way for a foreign 
mission and the church at Antioch sent out Bar- 
nabas and Saul as the first missionaries to heathen 
lands. 

But this gave great offence to Jewish Christians 
of the stricter sort, and when Paul returned from 
the first mission journey the need for an official 
deliverance on the question was paramount. Such 
a deliverance was made by the great council of 
Jerusalem, in favour of the liberal policy. Gen- 
tiles were to be admitted to church fellowship 
on faith and repentance, without reference to their 
attitude towards Judaism. This was a far reach- 
ing decision, for it enabled Christianity forever 
to cast off its Jewish limitations; but it was not 
accepted as final by the stricter type of Jewish 
Christian, and the opposition finally developed an 
anti-Pauhne missionary society known as the Ju- 



44 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

daizers, whose pernicious activities troubled the 
churdi for years after.^ 

The council of Jerusalem closed the period of 
transition and opened that of culmination. Freed 
from the hampering influence of Palestine, Paul 
came to his own as the Apostle to the gentiles; 
one by one the great centres of population fell 
under the spell of his wonderful ministry, and 
churches sprang up in Thessalonica, Philippi, 
Corinth and Ephesus. Paul wisely followed the 
trade routes and planted Christianity in places 
from which it would quickly spread to Rome. The 
glorious church which had grown so influential in 
the metropolis is evidence of the quick dispersion 
over the gentile world. 

Paul's ambition was world-wide. At the end of 
his third journey he contemplated a fourth which 
should carry him to Spain, at that time supposed 
to be the end of civilisation. During this journey 
he proposed to realise a long cherished desire to 
see Rome. The rest of Luke's story is taken up 
with the partial realisation of this plan. It is a 
story of Jewish intrigue : of tumults in Jerusalem, 
of narrow escapes and night alarms; of disputa- 
tions and imprisonments in Caesarea, culminating 
in thrilling adventures by land and sea, and Paul's 

* For the importance of this controversy, see MacGregor's 
"Christian Freedom," the Baird lecture for 1913- 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 45 

arrival at last in Rome, a prisoner of the Lord. 
Here the story fittingly ends. 

This thing was not done in a corner. At every 
point the movement was in contact with the life 
and opinion of the world. The gospel interested 
all sorts of people. It came into a welter of 
races and religions. It touched superstition, in- 
tellectual confusion and insistent need. 

What was^ the temper of those times ? What 
were the intellectual forces the new religion had 
to meet? What of the rival faiths with which 
it was compared? What were the moral and spirit- 
ual aspirations of that changeable and all too- 
human age? In a word, what was the background 
of life and opinion upon which the gospel was 
projected? These are some of the questions upon 
a study of which we are about to enter. 



PART ONE: THE QUEST 
FOR SAFE CONDUCT 



LECTURE II 

THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 



LECTURE II 

THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 

From the beginning man has been a seeker after 
God. This quest is occasioned by a need for a 
right relation with God that becomes urgent in 
proportion as man develops a moral experience. 
Religion in so far as it is a human development 
is man's effort to meet this need. 

No period of man's history is without this dis- 
tinguishing feature, but perhaps no age has more 
keenly felt the need of a right relation with God 
than that which forms the background of early 
Christianity. It was, as we have seen, an age of 
political and religious disenchantment. The rapid 
shifting of political barriers, the breakdown of 
ancient religious supports, and the violent mani- 
festations of passionate cruelty which character- 
ised the last days of the Roman Republic, together 
with the increasing mobility of life tended to bring 
the question of moral direction to the front and 
set the individual on a fresh quest for God. We 
are about to begin the study of some of these 
quests. All of them were efforts to answer the 

49 



50 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

question: How can a man get right with God? 

At the outset, however, it will be well to define 
our notion of religion. Religion is man's most 
concentrated conception of spiritual need. It is 
the manifestation of an impulse which has been 
defined as "the effective desire to be in right rela- 
tion to the Power manifesting itself in the uni- 
verse." ^ This desire is often based on different 
notions of deity. Man may believe in one God or 
in many gods ; he may follow superstition or spirit- 
ual revelations, but the fact of consequence is the 
presence from the beginning of this imperious 
need. The need for right relations expresses it- 
self in various ways, which tend to become typical 
and historically continuous because they indicate 
representative phases of spiritual experience. We 
shall consider in this and immediately succeeding 
lectures certain of these typical forms, but in the 
beginning it is best to form an idea of their gen- 
eral character. 

They may be described as quests for safe con- 
duct.^ The need for a right relation with God 
develops when man becomes aware of the mys- 
tery of life. He felt the mystery of his being 
long before he clearly thought about it, and his 

^ Howerth, quoted by Fowler: "The Religious Experi- 
ence of the Roman People," p. 8. 

^ I owe this phrase to Mr. L. P. Jacks. 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 51 

first response to it came through the imagination 
rather than the intellect. Man felt that he was 
dependent on a power whose presence was mani- 
fest in nature. What was this power? Was it a 
person, or an impersonal force ? Did it think, feel, 
and will like a man? The natural impulse was to 
think of this power in such terms as to mask, if not 
entirely to destroy its strangeness. The easiest 
way of overcoming the mystery of God was to 
make Him in man's image, to invest Him with hu- 
man attributes. 

The notion of the Infinite and Eternal was a 
painful one for the primitive mind. It was too 
remote, awful and vague in that form, to satisfy 
human need, hence the tendency to polytheism 
was present from the first. Man broke up the 
Infinite into a number of finite parts, and by in- 
vesting these several parts with human attributes, 
he brought God within the range of the feelings 
and comprehension of the understanding. Man's 
first impulse was to find a human life in God, and 
when he thought he had found this, it made him 
very much at home in the world. This was, as 
Lowes Dickinson has truly observed, the distin- 
guishing feature of Greek religion.^ Among the 
Greeks, the gods were the first citizens of states, 

3 "The Greek View of Life/' pp. 3-4. 



52 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

the founders of races and the natural protectors of 
peoples. 

These early conceptions were elaborated in 
highly coloured mythologies; but in spite of the 
complexity and beauty of these imaginative forms, 
the likeness of the gods to men was never lost 
sight of. Their passions were human, all too hu- 
man ; and so long as man was able to think of the 
central mystery of his hfe in familiar terms, the 
need for adjustment was but vaguely felt. It 
was present, of course* but never burdensome. He 
was very much at home in the world because God 
was altogether like himself. 

But the moral sense grew with man.^s growth. 
Enlightenment developed conscience, and man be- 
gan to feel the spur of instinctive morality. This 
developed into a critical tendency which operated 
in two directions. On the one hand man became 
sceptical of his gods, on the other hand he began 
to question his religious status. He could neither 
satisfy his conscience, nor be at home in the world. 
He was haunted by a feeling of not being right 
before God, and a fresh quest for a right relation 
with the Power manifesting itself in the universe 
became imperative. 

Unable any longer to be at home in the world 
he becomes aware of the need for moral guidance, 
and begins to think of religion as an expedient in 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 53 

the way of safe conduct through the world. His 
problem is a very simple one: How can he get 
through this world with credit and safety? The 
answer to this question takes various forms. Some- 
times it is expressed in ritual performances, at 
other times in ethical speculations. In the case of 
the Jew it took the form of obedience to a revealed 
law. These methods of adjustment reduce them- 
selves to type; they begin to make history and can 
be isolated and studied in detail. They are of im- 
mense value in understanding man's religious con- 
ceptions because they express certain persistent 
phases of spiritual experience. 

All these methods of adjustment were current 
in the Gr^eco-Roman world when Christianity be- 
gan its westward movement. From Egypt and 
the East came the most attractive ritualistic re- 
ligions, from Greece the most important ethical 
conceptions, and from Palestine the religion of 
revelation; and each exercised a remarkable in- 
fluence over the peoples to whom the gospel was 
preached. 

The influence of these several forms of religious 
teaching was due to the fact that the age acutely 
realised the need for safe conduct. Man felt that 
he had a clear title to his sins. Moral sensibility 
made him aware of the lack of harmony between 
his experience and the mysterious Being whose 



54 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

power was manifest in the universe. The question 
of right relation was fundamental. Man wanted 
moral security and spiritual certitude. He was 
quite impatient with vague and inchoate notions 
of religion and demanded a concrete and definite 
transaction with the Deity. This explains the 
syncretic tendency of the time, which is, as we 
shall see, strikingly reflected in the writings of 
Cicero. 

The problem of safe conduct was urgent for 
a very simple reason. A man may be very well 
content with his religious status so long as he is 
not obliged to think about it. But if events force 
him to reflect he may become dissatisfied with it, 
and when this takes place he will lose confidence 
in his status. In other words reflection of any 
kind is apt to reopen the question of safe conduct. 
It is not necessary to prove that a view of religion 
is false; it is only necessary seriously to question 
it. Now the passion for certitude in religious mat- 
ters which characterised this age was met on every 
side by a questioning spirit. The age wanted to 
believe in something because it wanted peace ; but 
it could not escape the pains of doubt. That is 
why the period of the Advent was one of passion- 
ate religious inquiry. The Graeco-Roman world 
was in quest of safe conduct and at the same time 
sceptical of familiar ways of salvation. The old 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 55 

Roman gods were either dead or inactive. They 
could no longer satisfy the yearning for peace and 
security which characterised the age ; still men felt 
that an answer to their main question could be 
found. They were ready to listen to any prophet 
or any gospel. They were willing to examine any 
kind of religion, and what is even more significant, 
they were busy constructing new religions out of 
ancient faiths and philosophies. The syncretic 
tendency of the time shows this. One cult would 
borrow from another, and each sought the best ele- 
ments in current faiths. 

When Paul carried the gospel into the gentile 
world there were three persistent forms of spirit- 
ual experience exercising a mighty influence over 
the people : salvation by ritual, salvation by ethics, 
and salvation by legal obedience to a revealed law. 
The first was represented by the Oriental mys- 
tery religions, the second by the Epicurean and 
Stoic philosophies, and the third by Judaism. 

These conceptions were by many questioned, 
and by some found inadequate. For one thing 
they were old. Each had a past which could not 
be lived down. The old Roman religion was still 
devoutly followed in rural communities, but it had 
little save a political influence in the centres of 
population. As a religious movement the Augus- 
tan revival was a failure from the start. The 



56 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

Oriental cults were immensely popular with the 
masses but they had little significance for serious- 
minded intellectuals. These as a rule sought con- 
solation in philosophy and ethical speculation. 
They confessed the inadequacy of theory, and felt 
the need for a "virtue-making power." Many of 
them were trying to live in harmony with the ex- 
ample of some ancient philosopher. Judaism, of 
course, had powerful adherents, even among gen- 
tiles. The presence among the latter of God-fear- 
ers is an evidence of the superiority of Judaism 
over other cults ; still the eagerness with which they 
embraced Christianity shows the drift of the times. 
The ethical monotheism of the Jew of the disper- 
sion made the question of a right relation with God 
very urgent, but the sense of morality which it 
created tended to cast suspicion on ceremonial 
methods of all kinds. 

The truth is the moral sense of the age was 
running far in advance of its religious supports. 
Conscience was driving men into a blind alley. 
Political and social changes made the need of 
moral guidance painfully evident, but a satis- 
factory moral dynamic was not forthcoming. 

Into this welter of faith and doubt, of insistent 
need and painful questioning, came the new re- 
ligion. Could Christianity answer the great ques- 
tion and set man right with God ? Could it afford 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 57 

humanity an undisputed status before the Most 
High ? This interest in rehgion gave Paul and his 
associates a pecuhar opportunity. The world was 
in a sense prepared for Christianity. We must 
not suppose, however, that the religious interest 
of the time was a self-conscious and deliberately 
intelligent effort to criticise, examine, reject, or 
accept any religion. What was present in this 
age was a tendency. People felt that the old no- 
tions would not do ; they were haunted by a sense 
of moral insecurity. Religion as commonly under- 
stood was degraded into a feeling of nervous- 
ness — an unreasoning dread of gods and daemons. 
They were very uncertain about the future. This 
feeling had an immense power for tormenting 
people simply because it was vague and inchoate. 
Dread was in the air, like a poisonous atmosphere. 
Men questioned the next step. The need for a 
clear and explicit way of life was paramount. 

This vague sense of need is responsible in part 
for the early descriptions of the Christian com- 
munity. Before the idea of the church took defi- 
nite shape, the disciples of Christ were called the 
people of the way. They moved through the world 
with such confidence and precision that people 
were inclined to ask them the reason for the hope 
that was in them, and they could only reply: 
"We have sanctified Christ in our hearts as Lord." 



58 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

The gospel was the way of hfe. It is also re- 
sponsible for certain things in Paul's epistles, as 
when he discusses Greek pliilosophy with the Cor- 
inthians, the tyranny of elemental spirits with the 
Colossians, or elaborates the great doctrines of 
the faith in the letter to the Romans. By natural 
endowment and spiritual experience Paul was 
fitted to apprehend what the gentile world needed. 
He gave his teaching a form that would make it 
intelhgible to that restless and unstable age. 

Before, however, we begin the study of how the 
background influenced Christian teaching we must 
consider in detail the characteristic forms of spirit- 
ual experience manifested by certain quests for 
safe conduct then current in the Grgeco-Roman 
world. We must try to understand why these 
methods of salvation were being questioned at the 
beginning of the Christian era. 

The first of these ways is the ritual quest for 
safe conduct. The impulse to get right with God 
by means of ceremonial performances is the oldest 
religious quest of mankind. The belief that by 
means of external observances man can lay the 
Eternal under tribute is deeply rooted in human 
nature. Salvation by ritual is the religion of the 
natural man, simply because it is the one phase 
of religious experience that has no necessary con- 
nection with morality. If one believe in the ab- 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 59 

solute efficacy of external performances he will 
be under no obligation to think of religion as a 
sanction for morals. A strictly ritualistic notion 
ordinarily stifles the ethical impulse. It intoxi- 
cates the senses, exploits the emotions, debauches 
the imagination, and, by putting the conscience to 
sleep, enables man to make the best of both worlds. 
For this reason ritual has always been popular 
with the masses. The aptitude of primitive man 
for religion conceived as a mythology was far in 
excess of his aptitude for material comfort. Long 
before he had learned how to make adequate pro- 
vision for his physical necessities he had elabo- 
rated a scheme of worship highly ritualistic in 
character.* A ritualistic religion cannot create 
moral sanctions. What usually happens is that the 
moral sense develops independently and then turns 
round upon the ritual and transforms it ethically. 
This was the conspicuous service rendered to 
Greek religion by the sophists of the fifth century 
B.C. 

The immense popularity of ritual forms makes 
a study of this phase of religious experience very 
important. The ritual quest for safe conduct was 
represented in the Grseco-Roman world by the 
mystery religions, which came for the most part 

* Fairbaim : "The Philosophy of the Christian Religion/* 
pp. 188-189. 



60 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

from the East. A study of some of these cults is 
necessary if we are to understand the rehgious 
situation confronting the gospel during the west- 
ward movement of Christianity. Such a study 
will show how they prepared the way for Chris- 
tianity, not only because they intensified the need 
for guidance, but also because of their signal fail- 
ure to furnish it. 

It is difficult for us, who are accustomed to think 
of religion in terms of an absolute moral impera- 
tive, to estimate the power of ritual in the re- 
ligion of the ancient world. It was powerful in 
two directions: on the one hand it captured the 
imagination by its splendid appeals to the senses. 
Even so confirmed a sceptic as Lucretius con- 
fessed that he was powerfully impressed by the 
ritual of Magna Mater. On the other hand ritual' 
had an immense influence on the spirit of the dev- 
otee. It silenced the questioning of the mind and 
tranquillised the heart by the realistic precision of 
its modes of worship. The performance of ritual 
seemed to accomplish a reconcihation with the 
gods in a visible way. 

In order to appreciate the power of such ap- 
peals, let us suppose that you were convinced that 
you would never be able to provide a reasonable 
competence for your old age; and you were as- 
sured if you would memorise and recite each 4th 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 61 

of July the Declaration of Independence before 
an officer of the United States provided for that 
purpose, that the government would assume en- 
tire responsibility for your future, you would 
have no difficulty in accepting this proposition. 
And this was the sort of promise made by these 
Oriental cults. As Cumont observes, "if a Divin- 
ity was invoked according to the correct forms, 
especially if one knew how to pronounce its real 
name, it was compelled to act in conformity to 
the will of its priest. The sacred words were an 
incantation that compelled the superior powers to 
obey the officiating person, no matter what pur- 
pose he had in view. With the knowledge of the 
liturgy men acquired an immense power over the 
world of spirits." ^ 

These promises were always associated with 
splendid appeals to the senses. Naturally they 
had a powerful hold on the masses and this taken 
together with the fact that the cults began to 
spread at a time of political and religious unrest 
easily accounts for their popularity. 

We must keep steadily in mind the material 
fact that these cults were able to produce the 
most satisfactory sort of impression on the spirit 
of the worshipper. It is easy to suggest their in- 
adequacy. But this is quite immaterial. The fact 

^ ''Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism," p. 93. 



62 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

is these cults were healing and consoling influences 
in a profoundly distressed age, and some knowl- 
edge of them is required if we are to understand 
the forces of life and opinion that came in contact 
with the gospel. 

The study of these religions is very difficult 
for two reasons: first, because we know next to 
nothing about their rituals, and secondly, because 
the syncretic tendency was present from the be- 
ginning. The interpretation of a mystery cult 
depends for the most part on some knowledge of 
its ritual. Its essential meaning is not expressed 
in a theology, but in forms of worship. And we 
know little of the ritual because it was performed 
in secret. It was open to the initiate only, and 
rarely came to the knowledge of contemporary 
writers. There is a little in Plutarch; we have a 
romantic account of the ritual of Isis in the writ- 
ings of Apuleius ; Lucian tells us something of the 
ritual of the Syrian Goddess, but these notices 
are of little value in forming an opinion of their 
nature in the early decades of the first century. 
Furthermore these cults were subject to the syn- 
cretic tendency. They borrow, modify and trans- 
form whatever is to their liking. They constantly 
react on each other. The powerful ethical criti- 
cism of the time was forcing the pagan theologians 
to disavow or disguise much that was gross and 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 63 

repellent. They often clothed their teachings in 
the best and most popular forms of other re- 
ligions. The result is that the religious concep- 
tions of the early part of the first century lack 
distinctness. Still it is possible to consider these 
cults in a general way. We shall confine our at- 
tention, however, to the mystery religions which 
came to Rome from the Orient, since their influ- 
ence best illustrates the ritual quest for God. 

There were at least four Eastern religions be- 
sides Judaism current in the Roman empire. 
These religions were : the Cybele- Attis cult which 
came from Phrygia; certain Syrian nature cults 
which were tending towards monotheism ; the Isis- 
Serapis cult which came from Egypt, and last 
and greatest of them all, the cult of Mithra. It 
has been clearly shown that Mithra had little 
influence in the empire until the second century 
of our era. Such scholars as Cumont,^ Kennedy j'^ 
Clemen,^ Dill,^ Schweitzer,^^ and Harnack,^^ agree 
that it came late to Rome. Pompey, if we are to 

^Op. Cit., 140. 

^ "St. Paul and the Mystery Religions/' pp. 114-115. 

® "Primitive Christianity and Its Non-Jewish Sources/* 
pp. 30-32. 

^ "Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius/' pp. 
589-591. 

" "Paul and His Interpreters/' p. 186. 

^^ "The Mission and Expansion of Christianity," Vol. 2, 
pp. 318-320. 



64 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

believe Plutarch, found traces of Mithra among 
the Cilician pirates in the first century B. C; the 
cult was probably known to the foreign legionary 
in the provinces long before it reached Rome ; but 
there is no reliable evidence that Mithra had an 
important influence on the religious situation un- 
til the second century, and for this reason it has 
no place in our inquiry. We shall limit ourselves 
to the religions known to have had an influence on 
current opinion at the beginning of the Christian 
era. 

The religious notions of the pagan Semites were 
propagated in the early empire by the Syrian mer- 
chant and slave. These were nature cults that 
originated in the worship of the vital principle. 
In the beginning they were gross and material- 
istic; but while the Egyptian was never quite suc- 
cessful in raising his gods above the dust, the 
Syrian finally lifted his conception of deity to the 
high heavens. As Cumont, our chief authority, has 
pointed out, as these nature myths came under 
the influence of astrology, the notion of deity they 
symbolised was refined and exalted until it took 
the form of a God beyond the stars, whose dwell- 
ing place was the high heavens, in short, a God 
Almighty.^ ^ Thus these Syrian cults, of little 
value otherwise, assisted other religions in exalting 

12 Op. Cit., pp. 127-129; 199. 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 65 

their gods, and aided in the spread of monotheism 
particularly among the peoples not influenced by 
Judaism.^ ^ 

The Phrygian religion was a nature cult also. 
Cybele was the mother of all things, the goddess 
of nature and especially of wild nature. She was 
the seat of the vital principle, giving the seasons 
and the harvests, sending the storm and the rain, 
and ruling over the changing year. Early in her 
history she is associated with a strange creature, 
called Attis, who figures as her consort* In 
the beginning it is a tale of vulgar passion and 
self -mutilation ; but Attis slowly evolves into a 
symbol of the changing seasons, and finally be- 
comes a dying and reviving god. The cult was 
served by mutilated priests, and its worship was a 
wild frenzy very like that of the cult of Dionysus 
in ancient Greece. 

This Eastern religion came to Rome in 204 B.C. 
under very interesting circumstances. The crisis 
occasioned by the Second Punic War compelled 
the Romans to consult the Sibyls, and as a measure 
of state policy they advised the introduction of a 
new religion. They even went so far as to sug- 
gest the propriety of bringing the Great Mother 
to Rome. Acting on this suggestion the Romans 

■•^^ On the general tendency towards monotheism in the 
last century of the Republic, see Fowler's "Roman Ideas of 
Deity," Lecture 2. 



66 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

sent an embassy to Phrygia, and Cybele, symbol- 
ised by an old black stone, was brought in splen- 
did state to assmne her sway over the city of the 
seven hills. The stone was deposited in the Temple 
of Victory on the Palatine April 4th, and this day 
was made a festival. The Romans, being espe- 
cially anxious to preserve the foreign character of 
the cult, gave the festival a Greek name, '*the Me- 
galesia." Thirteen years later a temple was ded- 
icated to the Great Mother but for many years 
the Romans were forbidden by senatorial enact- 
ment to take any part in her worship.^* In spite 
of this Cybele flourished. Her worship was highly 
offensive to Roman taste and it remained a re- 
ligion of a foreign minority until the empire, when 
it rapidly grew in influence. It retained its hold 
until the fourth century when it was finally ab- 
sorbed into the cult of Mithra. The Romans de- 
spised the mutilated priests but were powerfully 
influenced by the worship. Magna Mater was 
very attractive to women. She had no theology, 
gave unrestrained expression to the emotions and 
depended entirely on her frenzied forms of wor- 
ship. 

The cult of Isis-Serapis came to Rome from 
Alexandria a century before the Christian era. 
This syncretic religion was devised by the Ptol- 

^* Fowler : "Roman Festivals," p. 70. 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 67 

emies as a political expedient. It was an effort 
to merge the Egyptian cult of Isis-Osiris with 
popular Greek conceptions for the purpose of 
welding together the foreign subjects of the em- 
pire. It is likely that the Eleusinian and Orpliic 
mysteries had something to do with this trans- 
formation. This cult, like that of Magna Mater, 
remained a religion of a foreign minority until 
the empire, after which, in spite of repeated 
efforts to suppress it, it gained a vast influence in 
Kome, especially among women. Osiris, like At- 
tis, was a dying and reviving god, but the chief 
contribution of Isis was her tremendous emphasis 
of ritual, 

All these cults had many gross elements. Their 
frenzied forms of worship were offensive to the 
Roman sense of decorum. They had, and this 
must be kept steadily in mind, little or no con- 
nection with morality. But in spite of obvious 
limitations they propagated certain religious con- 
ceptions hitherto foreign to the Roman tempera- 
ment, which were not only attractive to the people 
but of great utility in the spread of Christianity. 
Their wide influence shows the drift of the times. 
The people were looking for certain things in re- 
ligion and they found them in these cults. What 
were some of these things? If we know this we 



68 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

can understand the sort of religion the age was 
prepared to accept. 

The mystery religions emphasised the idea of 
personal immortality. To the disillusioned Roman, 
burdened with a sense of existence in a world of 
political and social disorder, aware of the futility 
of philosophy and no longer able to believe in the 
pale abstractions of the native rehgion, the ap- 
peal of these warm, sensuous cults of the East was 
almost irresistible. He was offended by the 
frenzied worship, he despised the effeminate and 
mutilated priests, but he was powerfully impressed 
by their splendid promises. They offered union 
with the life of the gods through certain visible 
and compelling sacraments. To observe a cere- 
mony or submit to a purification conferred a last- 
ing benefit. They used ritual performances with 
great skill and effectiveness. The initiate always 
had a definite transaction with deity; something 
invariably happened to him; the ritual never 
failed. Ceremonial brought the worshipper into 
direct contact with divinity and he became an 
enthusiast — a man full of the gods. It was natural 
that the starved imagination of the people should 
welcome the splendid ceremonial of the East in 
place of the cold and repulsive abstractions of the 
old Roman religion. 

These cults were served by a non-secular priest- 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 69 

hood, a new thing in those days. A priest of the 
Roman religion was an officer of the state, and 
religious observances were parts of pubhc duty. 
The new cults by comparison familiarised the peo- 
ple with the idea of a personal and non-political 
religion. The temples of the native religion were 
government buildings: units of a pohtical organ- 
isation; the new cults were directed by ministers 
whose only function was religious and the ritual 
was performed in an open church. The temples 
were open at all times; there were daily services 
and the gods were always accessible. The oppor- 
tunity of taking part at all times in religious serv- 
ices would naturally appeal to a people whose 
notions of worship had hitherto been limited to 
state ceremonials. 

We cannot overestimate the attraction of the 
open churches and the non-secular clergy. The 
old Roman religion at its very best was a cold, ab- 
stract sort of thing. It was a state religion rather 
than a religion for the individual. Its religious 
books were as dry as law reports while its con- 
ception of decorum was not calculated to appeal 
very strongly to the emotions. It made little 
use of the imagination and deliberately discouraged 
enthusiasm. The new cults on the other hand were 
warm, sensuous, and passionate. They deliber- 
ately appealed to the emotions, and exploited the 



70 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

imagination. They were personal religions ad- 
justed to individual need. Worship was not 
an affair of political duty but an invariable ex- 
pression of personal preference. Such an appeal 
was calculated to meet the craving of the time for 
a larger expression of individuality. Men were 
acutely conscious of personal needs, they were 
looking for a personal religion. They wanted 
(and who can blame them) a religion adjusted 
to the emergencies of every day life ; and the open 
church, the daily services, and the non-secular 
clergy met the need for the time being in a very 
satisfactory way. 

These cults also provided a new conception of 
social relationships. Under the old regime the 
ordinary basis of fellowship was the family, the 
clan, and the city-state. Worshippers of national 
deities were never free from a feeling of isolation. 
The people were kept apart by a rigid caste sys- 
tem. The Komans, especially in that unstable 
time, were suspicious of all voluntary associa- 
tions that were not in accord with established cus- 
tom. But the city-state with its exclusive solidar- 
ity was gone. The world was adrift on the tide of 
empire and cosmopolitanis'm made men lonely. 
It aroused while it could not satisfy their social 
instincts. The freedmen, rapidly rising in wealth, 
culture and independence, demanded a new basis 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 71 

for social fellowship, a bond more in harmony with 
individual necessity. The new cults were pecu- 
liarly fitted to meet this need. They were essen- 
tially social and democratic. They expressed the 
feeling of John Wesley that "people should go to 
heaven in companies and not one by one." All 
men, without regard to their previous condition, 
became brothers in the temples of the gods. Master 
and man, freedman and slave found themselves 
associated on terms of equality in the daily wor- 
ship. The brotherhood had a community supper 
which symbohsed this new relationship. By plac- 
ing a new value on the individual, by opening 
avenues of escape from the loneliness of the 
time, these new religions were able to satisfy the 
social hunger that was then everywhere evident 
in the organisation of guilds and fellowships, 
burial societies and fraternities of various sorts: 
ostensibly founded on business or economic in- 
terests, but in reahty manifesting the longing for 
relationships of a social kind more in harmony 
with individual need. By turning social passion 
into religious channels these cults made it easier 
to form Christian copimunities among peoples al- 
ready familiar with the form and desirability of 
such associations.^^ 

^^ For an interesting account of the social passion of the 
age^ see Dill: "Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Au- 
relius/' Book II, Chapter 3. 



72 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

These cults were called mystery religions be- 
cause they had secret rites and esoteric doctrines. 
The elaborate ceremony of initiation was cal- 
culated to arouse the curiosity and eventually to 
develop the latent mysticism of the time into a 
powerful spiritual influence. 

It must not be forgotten that these cults had 
little or no connection with morality. They were 
sacramental religions rather than moral dynamics, 
and quite indulgent of human frailty. This was 
particularly true of the cult of Isis. She was, as 
Cumont truly observes, "honoured especially by 
the women with whom love was a profession" and 
her temples were often scenes of disgraceful in- 
trigue.^ ^ Still the power of these religions was 
great. They maintained their influence in the face 
of persecution, and devotees were sometimes capa- 
ble of martyrdom. They were capable of giving 
peace and consolation to a melancholy age. It was 
faith in the absolute efficacy of ritual perform- 
ances that reconciled the orderly Roman to the 
orgiastic genuflections of Cybele's eunuch priests. 
It was faith in her power to save that prompted 
proud Roman matrons to bathe in the chilly Tiber 
in winter, or walk round the temple of Isis on 
their bleeding knees. Satirists like Juvenal might 
scoff at these things, but it matters little. Many 
i«Op. Cit., p. 90. 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 73 

poor disillusioned people found in the service of 
these strange Eastern religions a peace and con- 
solation they could not obtain from the old native 
faith. 

The popularity of these cults taken together 
with their history is a supreme example of the 
success and failure of a ritualistic religion. Ritual 
is powerful so long as conscience is dormant, but 
once rouse the moral sense and it will turn upon 
ritual and either reject it entirely or modify it so 
as to destroy its original form. This process of 
transformation was undoubtedly going on as 
early as the first century. Parallel with the spread 
of these cults was a growing ethical movement rep- 
resented by certain philosophies, particularly Stoi- 
cism. No religion, least of all such cults as these, 
can withstand the transforming criticism of ethics, 
and it was a regnant morahty that gradually un- 
dermined their influence. 

This came about partly through syncretism, and 
partly by supersession. In the fourth century of 
our era paganism was transformed and confronted 
Christianity in the religion of Mithra, but Mithra 
finally yielded to the Man of Galilee. In the 
early decades of the first century, however, the 
influence of ethics is represented by a tendency 
to borrow ideas and practices from other religions. 



74 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

and the effort to bring conduct into conformity 
with moral requirements. 

The conflict between ritual and ethics may be 
illustrated by a consideration of the question of 
origins. How would these cults appear when con- 
trasted with a religion like Christianity? 

A fourth century impression of the conflict 
between ethics and ritual is thus summed up by 
Cumont : "Never was the lack of harmony greater 
between the moralising tendencies of theolo- 
gians and the cruel shamelessness of tradition. A 
god held up as the august lord df the universe was 
the pitiful and abject hero of an obscene love 
affair. . . . The men of letters and senators at- 
tending those mysteries saw them performed by 
painted eunuchs, ill reputed for their infamous 
morals, who went through dizzy dances similar to 
those of the dancing dervishes. . . . We can im- 
agine the repugnance these ceremonies caused in 
everybody whose judgment had not been de- 
stroyed by a fanatical devotion." ^^ 

But the disposition to bring tradition to the 
test of ethics was very powerful even in the first 
century. The moral character of the priests was 
severely condemned by Petronius and Juvenal. 
A century later the devotees of these cults did not 
escape the scorn of Lucian and Apuleius. And 

^' Op. Cit., pp. 71-72. 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 75 

if one were disposed to follow the tradition of 
Attis or Osiris to its source one came upon coarse 
nature myths, and the portentous figures which 
bulked so largely in the imagination even of the 
first century turned out to be symbols only. It 
was far otherwise with the Christian tradition. 
Trace this to its origin and you come upon the 
historic figure of Jesus of Nazareth, a man ap- 
proved of God, abounding in good works; holy, 
harmless, and undefiled, separate from sinners. 
It was the tremendous contrast between a Person 
of historic reality, and a series of myths and sym- 
bols rising out of the superstitions of the past 
that finally discredited the mystery religions and 
led to the triumph of the church. 

It was the demand for an historic basis for re- 
ligious tradition that inspired the writing of the 
gospels. The church on gentile soil had no re- 
ligious books except the Greek version of the 
Old Testament and occasional letters to individual 
communities. Christians depended in the begin- 
ning on oral tradition. They received Jesus Christ 
as their Saviour upon the testimony of the Apos- 
tles. But so soon as Christianity came into con- 
tact with other cults the question was bound to 
rise : Did the glorious Saviour of Apostolic preach- 
ing have a beginning in history? Was He a real 
Personality, or was He like Cybele or Isis, a 



76 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

myth also ? Was Christ a symbol of God, or God 
manifest in the flesh? In some respects the real 
problem of the Apostles in dealing with gentiles 
was not to convince them that Jesus was God, 
but to prove the reality of His human and earthly 
life. They were obliged to show that Jesus was 
an historic Person. In response to this need the 
first gospels were written. We cannot easily meas- 
ure the power of these simple narratives — the art- 
less simplicity of Mark, or the gracious human- 
ism of Luke — in affording historical realism to a 
glorious tradition. Back of Apostolic preaching 
was this historic Personality, the life, death and 
resurrection of the world's Redeemer; and as 
this preaching created and sustained the purest 
form of morality consecrated as it was by faith in 
the Divine Master, it was inevitable that the age 
should realise that a new and distinct power had 
come into the world. 

It is true that the Oriental mystery religions 
aided in the spread of ideas favourable to Chris- 
tianity. They made the Romans familiar with 
such notions as immortahty, salvation, purifica- 
tion, redemption, a non-secular clergy, an open 
church, a brotherhood based on religious relation- 
ships, in short with the conception of personal 
religion. But the difference between Christianity 



THE RITUAL QUEST FOR SAFE CONDUCT 77 

and these cults was fundamental. At bottom it 
was an ethical difference. 

In regard to this difference the conclusions of 
Prof. Fowler are very convincing. After show- 
ing in his masterly treatment of "The Religious 
Experience of the Roman People" how far the old 
Roman religion as well as these Eastern cults had 
aided in the spread of ideas favourable to the new 
faith, he says: "All this taken together, so far 
from explaining Christianity, does not help us 
much in getting to understand even the conditions 
under which it grew into men's minds as a new 
power in the Ufe of the world. The plant, though 
grown in soil which had borne other crops, was 
wholly new in structure and vital principle. I 
say this dehberately after spending so many years 
on the study of the religion of the Romans, and 
making myself acquainted in some measure with 
the religions of other peoples. The essential dif- 
ference, as it appears to me, as a student of the 
history of religion, is this: that, whereas, the con- 
nection between religion and morality had so far 
been a loose one at Rome, indeed, so loose, that 
many have refused to believe in its existence, the 
new religion was itself morality, but morahty con- 
secrated and raised to a higher power than it had 
ever yet reached. ... I confess that I never rea- 
lised this contrast fully or intelhgently until I 



78 THE RELIGION OE POWER 

read through the Pauline epistles from beginning 
to end with a special historical object in view. It 
is useful to be familiar with the life and literature 
of the two preceding centuries, if only to be able 
the better to realise in passing to St. Paul, a 
Roman citizen, a man of education and experi- 
ence, the great gulf fixed between the old and the 
new, as he himself saw it."^^ 

This impressive statement confirms the judg- 
ment of an earlier scholar who says that when "the 
attention of a thinking heathen was directed to 
the new religion spreading in the Roman empire, 
the first thing to strike him as extraordinary would 
be that a religion of prayer was superseding the 
religion of ceremonies and invocation of gods."^^ 

But these Oriental cults came under the influ- 
ence of ethical criticism before they were brought 
into contact with Christianity. Salvation by ritual 
was confronted with salvation by ethics. This 
brings us to the ethical quest for safe conduct, to 
which we shall turn our attention in the next lec- 
ture. 

" Pp. 465-466. 

^^ Dollinger : "The First Age of Christianity and the 
Church/' p. 344; quoted by Fowler: Op. Cit., p. 468. 



LECTURE III 

THE ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 



LECTURE III 

THE ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 

Man's primitive religious impulse is "an effective 
desire to be in right relation to the Power mani- 
festing itself in the universe." By universe we 
may mean the world without, made up of sensible 
impressions, or the world within, made up of 
thoughts and desires. Where God is conceived as 
manifesting Himself through the external world 
the desire to be in right relation to Him will or- 
dinarily express itself in ritual forms, and religion 
will be used as a screen. But where God is con- 
ceived as manifesting Himself through the in- 
ternal world, the effort to be in right relation to 
Him will express itself as a phase of moral ideal- 
ism, and religion will become a way of life. 

Primitive man was interested in religion be- 
cause he wanted to be at home in the world, but 
when the moral sense developed, the desire for 
right relations was transformed into a quest for 
safe conduct. This singular change is best illus- 
trated in the religious experience of the Greeks. 
The aim of Greek religion, as Lowes Dickinson 

81 



82 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

has suggested, was to make man at home in the 
world. The easiest way to do this was to make the 
gods in man's image. The infinite was broken 
up into finite parts, and each part was personal- 
ised, localised, and worshipped in detail. The gods 
were founders of the Greek race, and the first citi- 
zens of the city-state. They were very like men; 
their passions and desires were altogether human. 
This conception of religion is expressed in the Ho- 
meric poems and for a long period was entirely 
satisfactory. The religious impulse developed the 
ritual, and the ritual was a screen which tempered 
the light of the eternal and enabled man to be at 
home in the world. 

But occasionally this screen was penetrated by 
a trenchant criticism, which eventually introduced 
a disturbing element into the Greek religious con- 
sciousness. The earliest Greek philosophers were 
physicists whose main interest was in the study of 
natural phenomena, still they came to devote a 
great deal of attention to moral questions. The 
moral aspects of life appealed very powerfully to 
the poetic temperament, and philosophers and 
poets working from different points of view were 
able seriously to disturb the primitive content- 
ment. "The evolution of theological and religious 
thought in Greece may be regarded as the re- 
sult of the action and interaction of the two rival 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 83 

principles of orthodoxy and dissent. . . . On the 
one hand the poets, especially Pindar, ^schylus, 
and Sophocles, without abandoning the old Ho- 
meric anthropomorphism, gradually purified and 
spiritualised the elements of religious idealism al- 
ready contained in the Homeric poems. . . . On 
the other hand the pre-Socratic philosophers were 
more and more led by their physical speculations 
towards a view of the universe in which no room 
was left for the Homeric gods, and began to ex- 
press their dissent at a very early period of Greek 
thought."^ The sombre idea of Fate or Nemesis 
came to the service of man's somnolent moral na- 
ture and awoke the conscience to a keen criticism 
not only of popular religious traditions but also 
of the conduct of life. As the moral nature de- 
veloped man became aware that he was not as 
much at home in the world as he used to be. Re- 
ligion could no longer serve as a screen because 
it could not satisfy the needs of conscience, and the 
desire for safe conduct through this life became 
a dominant passion. 

The need for safe conduct was very acutely felt 
in the fifth century B. C. This was the age of 
enlightenment, the period of the sophists and the 
poet Euripides. For one thing philosophers were 
becoming deeply interested in the moral aspect of 

^ Adam: "The Religious Teachers of Greece/' pp, 18-19. 



84 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

life. They had discovered the world of spirit 
which augmented the moral imperatives of life 
and developed the notion of individual respon- 
sibility and the worth of personahty. The Greek 
genius for intellectual activity was fully born in 
that age. From this came a disposition to ex- 
amine, criticise and modify traditions of all kinds. 
"The age of the sophists," according to Zeller, 
"was a period of fermentation preceding the age 
of construction." 

The sophists aimed to teach goodness, by which 
they meant "the art of succeeding in a democratic 
state, when you do not yourself belong to the 
ruling democracy, and in particular, the art of 
getting off when you are attacked in the courts 
of law." ^ This was a peculiar sort of goodness, 
and doubtless the profession had a questionable 
side; still the original aim of the sophists was to 
teach men to think for themselves, especially on 
moral questions. They beheved in the divine right 
of the individual as opposed to the arbitrary au- 
thority of tradition. This tendency of the fifth 
century is best illustrated by the teaching of Pro- 
tagoras. He is remembered chiefly for his famous 
aphorism, "Man is the measure of all things." He 
was the first of the pragmatists, holding that truth 

^Burnet: *'Greek Philosophy, Thales to Plato," pp. 
109-110. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 85 

was relative to the individual. The test of truth 
was its practical consequences, its essential utility.^ 
Applying this principle to religion he distin- 
guished between traditional conceptions and moral 
relations which had to do with the conduct of 
life. He did not care to break violently with 
ancient traditions; it was in fact highly inexpedi- 
ent to do so; but he acted on the assumption that 
in essential things it was best to follow the custom 
of the country. In all other matters he advised 
men to think for themselves. 

The growing feeling of individual importance 
which was the distinguishing feature of this age 
tended to clarify the need for safe conduct. It 
made the question of moral guidance an object of 
inquiry and transmitted the problem of its solu- 
tion to the next age. 

This brings us to Socrates, the first ethical 
thinker among the Greeks. There were two quali- 
ties of his personality which must be kept steadily 
in mind. One was his immense intellectual power, 
the other his mystical, or shall I venture to call it, 
his religious temperament. These qualities en- 
abled him to render a dual service to his age, 
first of diagnosis, and second of construction. 

He had in a remarkable degree the power of 

^ For a different view^ see Gomperz : "Greek Thinkers/' 
Vol. I, pp. 450-454. 



86 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

moral diagnosis. He seems to ask: What is the 
matter with this age? The people were richly 
endowed intellectually, of political sagacity and 
artistic sensibility, yet in spite of this they were 
not happy. It was easy to trace this unhappiness 
to evil. Men put true for false and false for true. 
They followed delusions of various kinds, and 
often mistook shadows for substance. Why? Be- 
cause they did not know, because they would not 
think. They followed opinion rather than knowl- 
edge. They were chiefly ignorant of themselves, 
of their capacities, limitations and needs. It is 
interesting to observe that more than three cen- 
turies earlier Isaiah was saying the same thing 
about his age: "The ox knoweth his owner, and 
the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not know, 
my people doth not consider." * 

According to Socrates man's misery was rooted 
in ignorance. His remedy for evil was knowl- 
edge, and his ruling principle the Delphic con- 
ception, "Know thyself." 

The key to his view of human nature is found 
in the phrase, "No man errs of his own free will." 
He did not believe that man would deliberately 
choose evil, or reject the good. Therefore his 
remedy for evil is a sort of moral intellectualism. 
In and out of season he laboured to teach men to 

*i:3. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 87 

think for themselves. His favourite method of 
attack was by means of a series of skilful ques- 
tions to expose the fallacies lurking in generally 
accepted phrases so as to produce confusion and 
perplexity in the mind of his hearer. He would 
then ascertain the truth underlying current ideas 
and endeavour to lead his disciples to form sound 
convictions. He had the wise man's healthy con- 
tempt for popular opinion; he was passionately 
interested in fundamental principles, because he 
believed that once in touch with principles a man 
would naturally go right. In other words, he 
believed that knowledge and goodness were iden- 
tical, that knowledge was power, and in so far as 
virtue was knowledge it could be taught. His 
scheme then of safe conduct was one of self- 
education. 

Socrates did the world a great service when he 
taught men to reflect. There is much to justify 
the notion that evil is due to ignorance, or even 
to a more subtle thing, a want of clearness in one's 
thinking. It is a difficult and an important thing, 
this thinking for one's self. But while we must 
recognise the place of self-knowledge in any 
scheme of life it is easy to point out the weak- 
ness of the Socratic position. If knowledge were 
always power the principle would be a valid one, 
but it is now a commonplace of ethical thinking. 



88 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

expressed long ago by Ovid: "I see the good and 
approve it, but deliberately practise the wrong," 
or better still in the words of Paul, "To will is 
present with me, but how to perform that which 
is good, I find not." Socrates had discovered one 
of the reasons for human defection, but it did not 
go to the root of the matter. He does not ap- 
pear to have had a clear notion of human perver- 
sity, and he is especially ignorant of the power of 
a lawless will. 

The important aspect of his service was not 
in the problems he settled, but in giving an ethical 
direction to the mental inquiry of his time. From 
his day ethical questions had a definite place in 
Greek thought. It is not easy to overpraise his 
ethical passion. His wonder at the newly aroused 
sense of individual importance, his confidence in 
the power of clear thinking, and his splendid, if 
too optimistic, faith in the natural goodness of 
human nature arouse our admiration. The bet- 
terment of humanity was the aim of this Silenus- 
faced philosopher. He had little interest in specu- 
lation for its own sake, he did his thinking in be- 
half of a good life ; and if his remedy is inadequate 
it is due in great measure to his downright sin- 
cerity. He was so passionately devoted to his 
ideal and so conscientious in his endeavour to 
attain it that he could not believe in the inaptitude 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 89 

for moral strenuousness which later thinkers found 
so characteristic of human nature. 

There is, too, in the teaching of Socrates a sort 
of religious fervour. He believed that he was 
guided in all things by a good daemon. The 
Spirit of God was his monitor, "and the remark- 
able thing about it," says Burnet, "was that it 
never prompted him to do anything; it only op- 
posed something he was about to do." ^ This be- 
lief in an inner voice, this confidence in the guid- 
ance of a spiritual monitor higher than man which 
frequently gives to his teaching a kind of re- 
ligious authority, suggests the instability of his 
main contention; for so soon as man's conscience 
is developed by a growing knowledge of the moral 
ideal, its ethical demands will far exceed his ability 
to satisfy them, and the consequence is a rift in the 
soul which destroys faith in the innate goodness of 
human nature and sets man on a fresh quest for 
God. 

This was what took place in the thinking of 
Socrates' greatest disciple. Plato's thinking illus- 
trates the truth that when man earnestly seeks 
to understand himself, he finds not only himself, 
but God. 

Plato followed the master's suggestions to their 
logical conclusions and by constructing his doc- 

5 Op. Cit., p. ISO. 



90 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

trine of ideas, he developed the highest type of 
monotheism in Greek philosophy. But with this 
fresh sense of Divine reality came a new knowl- 
edge of human nature. Protagoras had said that 
"man was the measure of all things." But Plato 
seems to ask : "What man?" The doctrine of ideas 
revealed an antagonism between flesh and spirit, 
and as little as Plato sympathised with Orphic 
mysticism he was one with it on this point. The 
Orphic sects taught that the soul was imprisoned 
in the body; the flesh was the tomb of the soul, 
a bondage to evil which could be broken only at 
death. Plato's thinking sharpened the dualism 
between flesh and spirit. On the one hand man 
was a complex of passions and appetites, on the 
other hand of ideals and spiritual aspirations. If 
man was the measure of all things it must be the 
spiritual man. But this higher self proved the 
reality of a world above the senses — fair and 
lovely — ^made up of ideas, ideals and communion 
with God. If this higher selfhood be accepted as 
the norm it not only measured man's possibilities, 
but suggested his limitations. The problem was 
one of emancipation. How was the spiritual man 
to rid himself of the earthly handicap ? Plato tells 
us how this might be accomplished in his famous 
allegory of the cave. 

First he conceives a number of prisoners im- 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 91 

mured in a long and gradually sloping chamber. 
They are bound so that they cannot move and 
are obliged to look at a blank wall at the end 
of the cave. Behind and above them is a fire burn- 
ing, and between them and the fire is a pathway 
flanked by a low wall. Along this pathway men 
are passing, carrying a number of vessels. These 
vessels, rising above the low wall flanking the 
pathway, cast their shadows on the blank wall at 
the bottom of the chamber. These shadow shapes 
are all that the prisoners see. He now supposes 
that the prisoners are released. At first they are 
reluctant to leave the cave. As they are taken 
into the light they are so confused that they are 
unable to distinguish the shadows from the ob- 
jects which cast them; but gradually they become 
accustomed to distinguish real objects; then they 
become aware of the element that reveals them. 
They recognise light itself, and finally by follow- 
ing it to its source, discover the sun.^ 

According to Plato men in their natural condi- 
tion are creatures of delusion. Knowledge is of 
shadow shapes only, and has no validity because 
it has no connection with reality. But if men 
display an aptitude for thinking they gradually 
leave the cave and learn how to distinguish real 

« "The Republic/' Book VII. Translated by Davies and 

Vaughan. 



92 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

objects from shadow shapes. Eventually they 
become aware of the element of truth which re- 
veals reality, and finally by tracing truth to its 
source they find the eternal God. Thus the hu- 
man spirit emancipates itself from the prisonhouse 
of the flesh. Every human idea has its divine 
counterpart. To know this is power, because it 
leads to God. Such knowledge is also virtue, and 
virtue means happiness. 

This is very beautiful but is open to criticism. 
If every man was naturally endowed with a pas- 
sion for high intellectual endeavour ; if he felt that 
his relation to God was the first and most import- 
ant business of life, he might choose this con- 
templative way, and attain to Platonic virtue. 
But suppose man lacks a natural capacity for re- 
flection, suppose he prefers a life of fleshly in- 
dulgence, how are you going to persuade him to 
abandon the cave? Plato does not answer this 
question simply because he is thinking of a cer- 
tain type of man; of a man like himself of phil- 
osophic genius and ethical passion of the high- 
est order. The good man is an intellectual aris- 
tocrat. If a man is to be saved he must turn phi- 
losopher and give himself to rigid intellectual dis- 
cipline. But the masses who prefer to live in the 
cave, dealing ever with shadow shapes, must be 
left to their own devices. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 03 

By opening the way to God only to the man of 
passionate ethical aspiration Plato parts company 
with the great majority; his quest for safe conduct 
leads nowhere. On the contrary, it raises a 
greater problem: Where can be found a virtue- 
making power of sufficient practicability to realise 
the Platonic ideal? Obviously it could not be 
found in the Socratic precept, "Know thyself." 
Knowledge alone was not enough. There must 
also be desire and moral passion to attain good- 
ness, and Plato's gospel would have no meaning 
to those lacking these things. In this fashion 
Plato raised a problem which the more practical 
mind of Aristotle endeavoured to solve. 

Aristotle, a man of universal interests, is never 
more practical than in his dealing with ethics. He 
aims to bring philosophy down to the level of the 
ordinary man and make it practicable for a work- 
a-day world. While agreeing with Plato in say- 
ing that a virtuous life requires reflection, he in- 
sists that the concept of virtue should be clearly 
defined and, in the effort to give it greater distinct- 
ness, makes three important statements: first, 
virtue is not an extreme position, but a golden 
mean; secondly, it is not confined to specific ac- 
tions, but is a habit of mind which must be 
formed by education and social discipline, and 



94 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

thirdly, the power to form virtuous habits comes 
from an ideal political environment. 

These points deserve further consideration. 
Virtue is conceived as a golden mean between ex- 
tremes. Excess and deficiency are characteristics 
of vice, and the mean state a characteristic of vir- 
tue. For instance, courage is the mean between 
the excess of foolhardiness and the deficiency of 
cowardice; temperance the mean between licen- 
tiousness and insensibility; or modesty between 
shamelessness and bashfulness. This of course is 
entirely in harmony with the Greek ideal of pro- 
portion.^ 

Aristotle makes an important distinction be- 
tween intellectual and moral virtues. Intellectual 
virtues belong to the rational part of the soul, 
such, for example, as wisdom and prudence. The 
moral virtues belong to the irrational part 
of the soul. This he describes as the concupiscent 
part of human nature, which, while not possessing 
reason, is capable of obedience to reason. Intel- 
lectual virtue is fostered by teaching and reflec- 
tion, but moral virtue is the product of habit. 
Moral virtue is the fruit of a proper discipline 
of the irrational or concupiscent part of the soul. 
This calls for strenuous endeavour, since man is 

^ "The Nicomachean Ethics," pp. 47-48. Weldon's trans- 
lation. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 95 

subject to both reason and impulse and they are 
frequently in conflict. Moral virtue is the issue 
of this struggle, it is the direct result of habits 
formed in obedience to right reason.^ 

The power to form habits of moral virtue is 
derived chiefly from an ideal political environment. 
Ethics is a branch of political science, and the good 
life can be realised only under social discipline. 
It is the function of the state to make men good. 
By means of its authority it must discipline the 
irrational part of the soul in conformity to right 
reason.^ 

These points are open to criticism. From an 
ideal point of view the notion of a golden mean is 
above reproach, but it does not work in practice. 
The conception of the balanced life is an unstable 
one; it gives too much scope to prudence, and in 
the last analysis bases morality on expediency. 
"Be not righteous over much, neither be thou over 
much wicked," has been the favourite creed of 
culture ; in fact the Epicurean code of morals was 
largely shaped by this notion of the mean. 

Aristotle's distinction between the rational and 
irrational parts of the soul is a very important 
one. He clearly sees what his predecessors had 
but dimly discerned — ^that human nature is not en- 



^ Op. Cit., pp. 32-S4>. 
^ Op. Cit., pp. 345-346. 



96 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

tirely subject to right reason. The disposition to 
act contrary to reason, to obey irrational impulses 
and follow perverse inclinations, must be reckoned 
with. This thing of being good is a strenuous 
business. *'The mind reigns, but does not govern," 
says Woodrow Wilson. "We are governed by a 
tumultuous house of comimons made up of the pas- 
sions, and the ruling passion is prime minister 
and coerces the sovereign." Knowledge is not 
sufficient ; man needs power to perform that which 
is right. He must be assisted in attaining a good 
life, and Aristotle is inclined to look for this in 
the direction of an ideal political environment. 
Doubtless a philosophic genius would voluntarily 
choose the path of virtue, but the plain man must 
be assisted on the way. This was the function 
of the state. Before the individual could be im- 
proved man must devise an ideal political institu- 
tion, through which alone social discipline could be 
realised. Hence Aristotle places the virtue-mak- 
ing power in the function of the state. Dealing 
with this difficult question he says: "If theories 
were sufficient of themselves to make men good, 
they would deserve to receive any number of 
handsome rewards, and it would have been our 
duty to provide them. But it appears in fact, 
that, although they are strong enough to en- 
courage and stimulate youths who are already 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 97 

liberally minded: although they are capable of 
bringing a soul which is generous and enamoured 
of nobleness under the spell of virtue, they are 
impotent to inspire the mass of men to chivalrous 
action; for it is not the nature of such men to 
obey honour, but terror, nor to abstain from evil 
for fear of disgrace, but for fear of punishment. 
For as their life is one of emotion, they pursue 
their proper pleasures and the means of gaining 
these pleasures, and eschew the pains which are 
opposite to them. But of what is noble and truly 
pleasant they have not so much as a conception, 
because they have never tasted it. Where is the 
theory or argument which can reform such people 
as these r^" 

Aristotle's diagnosis is admirable. In recognis- 
ing the difficulty of subduing the concupiscent part 
of the soul he was far in advance of his predeces- 
sors, but his view of that disciphne is distinctly 
disappointing. The virtue-making power, which, 
according to Socrates, belonged to all men, and 
according to Plato, to a certain type of man, is 
by Aristotle lodged with the state. Ethical sanc- 
tions are derived from political relations. 

The weakness of the position is clear, since it 
provides nothing for the proper discipline of a law- 
less will save an external relation to a political or- 

^^ Op. Cit., pp. S4S-344. 



98 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

ganisation. But social discipline has never been 
sufficient. Nothing short of a radical change of 
human nature from within can accomplish this. 
And the want of power in a political institution to 
provide an effective control of individual perver- 
sity practically reduces Aristotle's scheme to the 
Platonic level. It is for the few rather than the 
many. Assuming that it were possible in a com- 
pact city-state to provide a social discipline ade- 
quate to meet the situation, still the attainment 
of virtue in the citizen would be conditioned by 
the permanence of that form of government. The 
ethical sanction would be no stronger than the 
state itself. And if anything should happen to 
disturb political security it would immediately in- 
validate the ethical sanction. And if this should 
occur, the question of safe conduct would become 
acute again. 

And this took place in Aristotle's lifetime. All 
ethical theories up to and including Aristotle's 
were conceived within the limits of the Greek city- 
state. But certain forces were now at work which 
were calculated to disturb and eventually to de- 
stroy that form of government. 

One of these forces was a constantly growing 
sense of individual importance. Man was out- 
growing his traditions. The rationalistic move- 
ment, which in the fifth century had begun to 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 99 

question and modify ancient religious and political 
traditions, was peculiarly active in this direction 
in the fourth century. The notion of individual 
significance was being formulated, and this dis- 
turbed the social life of the age. Men were less 
interested in ultimate theories and wanted a way 
of hfe. The quest for safe conduct was becoming 
urgent again because the needs of the individual 
were felt to be paramount. 

But another momentous change was impending. 
On the one hand man's spirit was going out to 
meet the world; on the other hand the world was 
coming to meet him. The spirit of unrest within 
the city-state was met from without by the rapid 
rise of the Macedonian power and the conquest of 
the world by Alexander the Great. The barrier 
between East and West was broken down and the 
currents of life and opinion freely mingled. The 
ancient provincialism was giving way to a new 
sense of cosmopolitanism and a feeling of world- 
wide interests cut up and modified the old racial 
exclusiveness. 

Man was tormented by a new fear and a new 
desire.^ ^ He feared the consequences of this 
momentous political upheaval. Could he retain 
his political freedom under the new conditions? 
Did not these changes expose the native Greek, 

^^ Bevan: "Stoics and Skeptics/' pp. 24-28. 



100 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

ever the passionate lover of liberty, to slavery and 
degradation? Did not the collapse of the city- 
state seriously impair if it did not utterly destroy 
the authority of ancient religious traditions ? Man 
was tormented by new and disturbing ideas about 
everything. He was intensely conscious of loneli- 
ness. In this enlarging world he was without 
shelter for body or soul. He was like a youth, 
bom and bred in a provincial community, who 
suddenly finds himself alone and friendless in the 
streets of a great city. Amid new forces, strange 
faces and novel experiences he feels the remoteness 
and insignificance of his cherished traditions, the 
utter inaptitude of his point of view on every- 
thing. Such a man will desire a way of life above 
everything. So felt the people of the ancient 
world, particularly the conservative citizens of the 
old city-state when Alexander broke down the bar- 
riers between East and West and gave them a 
chance to see things from a cosmopolitan point 
of view. Old religions, philosophies and morali- 
ties; old notions of political rights and privileges 
were felt to be out of date. The time called for 
a new intellectual outlook. It wanted new teach- 
ers and new schools of thought to meet the new 
needs. 

But if these momentous changes made man fear- 
ful, from another point of view they inspired him 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 101 

with a new desire. He wanted to take his place 
in the new order of things. He began to have 
visions of a wider human relationship and gradu- 
ally became aware of the possibility of a world 
brotherhood. A fresh sense of the solidarity of 
humanity was altering the ancient racial exclusive- 
ness. If the passing of the old made him lonely, 
the coming of the new order made him keenly 
desire a share in its experience. 

The most pressing problem was how to meet 
the new conditions. Obviously the old theories 
would not suit the new age. They were too ab- 
stract and elusive to interest the plain man. He 
desired something that had to do with the busi- 
ness of living. It was a time when the ordinary 
man had to think about himself, and especially 
when everybody was looking for a way of life 
and a scheme of thought adjusted to the new con- 
ditions. 

It was to provide a way of life that the philoso- 
phies of Stoicism and Epicureanism were devised. 
These philosophies represent the ethical quest for 
safe conduct in the Grseco-Roman world. How 
these systems attained their influence over the 
ages immediately following Alexander's conquests 
is an important inquiry if we are to understand the 
temper of the times to which the gospel was 
preached. 



lOa THE RELIGION OF POWER 

The primary need of the fourth century was 
for individual guidance. This need is responsible 
for two features of the new philosophies. On the 
one hand they were quests for the chief good by 
means of ethical discipline; on the other hand 
they were intensely dogmatic. 

The morality of the Greeks up to the time of 
Socrates was instinctive rather than reflective. 
Even with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle ethics 
was subordinated to political science. The ethical 
sanction was bound up with the fortunes of the 
city-state. But the city-state was doomed. Man 
was rapidly outgrowing its provincial limitations, 
besides, Alexander's successes proved that form of 
government inadequate. This immediately sepa- 
rated the science of ethics from politics and made 
it a distinct object of inquiry. What the individual 
required was to be assured of a way of life which 
could afford tranquillity apart from favourable 
circumstances and unconditioned by political re- 
lationships. Under the old economy the chief 
good was always conceived as a composite thing, 
composed of many elements besides moral sanity. 
Youth, personal beauty, riches, intellectual power 
and political security under the compact form of 
a city-state were not only desirable concomitants 
but the essentials of happiness. But the changes 
of the fourth century had completely destroyed 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 103 

this conception. It was impossible under the new 
conditions to realise a composite ideal of the chief 
good. Man was stripped bare of all outward 
goods ; he lost contact with inherited religious sup- 
ports ; he was tormented with new desires and new 
needs, and was forced to seek spiritual compensa- 
tions apart from external conditions. How could 
he meet such a world as this? How could he 
face its adversities and cope with its uncertainties ? 
How could he become a contented citizen of this 
enlarging commonwealth of humanity and still 
retain a tranquil mind? The new philosophies en- 
deavoured to meet such needs as these. 

But the age was indifferent to argument and 
weary of speculations dealing with ultimate ques- 
tions. These seemed beside the mark. The prob- 
lems of life were urgent, and men wanted quick 
answers. They wanted something that would 
work, and work promptly. Some were inclined 
towards universal scepticism. It is interesting to 
remember that Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of the 
Sceptical school, followed Alexander to India and 
returned more than ever convinced of the futility 
of knowledge. He believed that nothing could be 
known for certain about anything. Vague prob- 
ability was the only guide of life. This school per- 
sisted in the Grseco-Homan world and had in 
Carneades a very able advocate, but we are not 



104 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

concerned with it here. The point of importance 
to remember is that the age was indifferent to 
sustained arguments and elaborate systems, and 
demanded dogmas. It was ready to believe in 
eoO'Caihedra deliverances of any kind, provided 
they had to do with the problem of moral direction. 
It is an interesting thing, this recurrent demand 
for dogma in the history of human opinion. After 
ages of rationalism people will turn from argu- 
ment and system and demand the dogmatist. It 
is a time when men will believe a conception not 
because they think it is true, but because it is 
powerfully and dogmatically proclaimed. It was 
the demand for dogma, this disposition to believe 
in a powerful preaching that gave to the philoso- 
phies of the fourth century something of the 
quality of Hebrew prophecy. It was the desire 
to believe in dogmas that made the personality of 
the philosopher a more important element than his 
teaching. The devotion of the followers to Epi- 
curus savoured of religious veneration. In fact, 
it was attachment to his memory that protected his 
system from the syncretic tendencies of the suc- 
ceeding centuries. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic 
school, had a personal influence that went far be- 
yond the influence of his teaching. All this in- 
dicates that the age was rapidly approaching a 
time when it would readily yield to personal lead- 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 105 

ership, when it was going to reaKse so acutely the 
need for a way of life that it would follow any 
man who could speak with authority on the main 
question. 

We must study these systems from this point of 
view. We cannot discuss them in detail; indeed, 
it is not desirable that we should. What is needed 
is to understand their spirit and main intention. 
They were intensely sincere efforts to meet a press- 
ing need of the times. They were not attempts at 
final systems of thought, but inspired by the prac- 
tical necessities of a series of profound changes 
growing out of Alexander's conquests. 

Stoicism centres in the will, Epicureanism in 
the desires. Zeno's main principle was that man 
has the power to will the good, and gain absolute 
independence of external conditions of life. The 
right use of the will would make man free in a 
world of change. Zeno held, and rightly I think, 
that many of life's evils come from an over-elabora- 
tion of desire. If you reduce the number of your 
desires, you reduce your needs to a minimum, and 
you at once limit the possibility of worry. Desire 
must be brought under the discipline of the will. 
Man overcomes the world by a noble defiance, by 
the adjustment of his demands upon it to the re- 
quirements of a disciplined personality. But what 
assurance of success has he? Supposing his in- 



106 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

tention to be right, can he depend on the uni- 
verse ? Will it help or hinder him ? Is the universe 
friendly or otherwise ? Zeno answers that the uni- 
verse is friendly because it is rational. All that 
is necessary to realise the chief good is to adjust 
decisions to right reason; hence the problem is 
simply one of adjustment. But by what rule? 
Zeno replies ''by following nature." To "follow 
nature" means to obey her essential meaning. But 
what is the essential meaning of nature? Zeno 
goes back to the speculations of Heraclitus. Her- 
aclitus taught that the universe was made of fire. 
It was instinct with reason and spirit. The uni- 
verse in short was alive, and this life had a voice 
which he called the ^'Logos'' or word. The word 
was intelligible to any one who was willing to listen 
to it. It told man that God and humanity were 
alike essentially rational beings, and this notion 
of imphcit rationality was taken over by the Stoics, 
and when they speak of following nature they 
mean to obey the voice of reason, which is the 
spirit and life of all things. This in many respects 
resembles Bergson's ''elan vitaV or push of life. 
It is open to all who have the sense to understand 
it. "Will to be good," Zeno seems to say, "and 
you may defy circumstances." By bringing the 
will under the control of reason man could never 
go wrong simply because the universe is friendly. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 107 

in short instinct with Providence, with God. There 
is a Semitic strain in Stoicism which is expressed 
in this characteristic doctrine. Zeno himself was a 
native of Citium in Cyprus, and many of the later 
Stoics were Semites. 

The notion of an immanent and guiding Spirit 
in the universe is suggested in the beautiful hj^mn 
of Cleanthes, the immediate follower of Zeno: 

**0 king of kings 
Through ceaseless ages, God, whose purpose brings 
To birth, whatever on land or in the sea 
Is wrought, or in high heaven's immensity; 
Save what the sinner works infatuate." ■^^ 

This quotation suggests Stoicism's noblest con- 
tribution and characteristic weakness. By follow- 
ing nature the Stoic believed he was following 
God. Man was akin to the eternal, and God was 
always willing to aid the striving spirit. It was a 
strenuous effort to adjust human nature to the 
requirements of God, and at the same time give 
man a position of undisturbed tranquillity in the 
midst of a changing world. Undoubtedly it proved 
a powerful agent in stabilising minds naturally 
disposed to goodness, but its characteristic con- 
fession is found in the statement that the Sovereign 
Will has no meaning for the "sinner infatuate." 
This, however, did not disturb the Stoic, because 
he was not interested in the "sinner infatuate." 

*^ Adam's translation: See Hicks' "Stoic and Epicurean," 
pp. 14-16. 



108 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

He accepts Aristotle's notion of the irrational part 
of the soul and endeavours to destroy this side of 
human nature by a rigid discipline of the desires; 
but the older Stoics thought of goodness and 
badness in such an absolute sense that they left no 
possible encouragement for the ordinary man. A 
man was either good or bad, and that was the end 
of it. Either he followed nature wholly, or not at 
all. There was no middle ground. They admitted 
that the ideal wise man was rare in our work-a- 
day world, but they would not alter their view. 
Of course, this made for hardness, austerity and 
grimness, but it made men strong enough to face 
the world with a valiant spirit. 

There was another element in Stoicism which 
made for hardness : I refer to its doctrine of inten- 
tion without desire.^ ^ The Stoic believed that de- 
sire in great measure determines happiness. Re- 
duction of the number and intensity of desires 
limits the possibiUty of unhappiness. But his 
special aim was not to make man happy but to 
make him good, and goodness was an affair of the 
will rather than of desire. Still he did not believe 
in cloistered goodness. The Stoic must take part 
in the world's work because he belonged to a 
universal brotherhood. But he must aim to serve 
others without allowing his feelings to become in- 

^^Bevan: Op. Cit, pp. 58-67. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 109 

volved. He must serve his neighbour, but he must 
not love him, neither must he worry if his service 
is a failure. His purpose was to do good to others 
but he would indulge in no useless regrets. Com- 
passion or pity were vices because they operated 
against the interests of peace. "In the service 
of his fellow man he must be prepared to sacrifice 
his health, to sacrifice his possessions, to sacrifice 
his life; but there is one thing he must never 
sacrifice — ^his own eternal calm." ^* 

The Stoic was trying to end life in himself. He 
is the Pharisee of the heathen world, a preacher of 
an impossible creed of strenuous endeavour; a 
seeker always after virtue : very much of a Puritan, 
sometimes a prig, always a dogmatist, and always 
tremendously interested in preserving at any cost 
his peace of mind. But he was something more 
and greater than this. He was a citizen of the 
world because he believed in the universality of 
reason. He cheerfully put behind him the old 
social and pohtical conceptions; he broke away 
from ancient speculations and faced the new age 
with a noble defiance of circumstance, simply be- 
cause he believed that everything meant intensely 
and meant good — for him. We can hardly over- 
estimate the power of Zeno's mind battering syl- 
logisms and dogmatic preachments in stabilising 

^*Bevan: Op., Cit., p. 67. 



110 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

an age adrift on a sea of cosmopolitanism. Men 
were willing to seize anything substantial enough 
to carry them through the great flood to peace and 
safety. This is enough to account for the influ- 
ence of Stoicism on the life and opinions of later 
centuries. 

The foil of Stoicism was Epicureanism. The 
Stoic believed in overcoming the world by de- 
fiance; the Epicurean by a judicious compromise 
and the avoidance of extremes. One was founded 
on predominance of will, the other on the proper 
co-ordination and development of desire. Stoicism 
had in it a Semitic strain of exclusive devotion 
to an ideal; Epicureanism expressed the Greek 
sense of proportion; the aim of the one was the 
safe life, of the other, the complete life. 

Epicurus believed that most of life's troubles 
were due to excess and one-sidedness. He traced 
much of life's unrest to religious observances and 
endeavoured by means of the physical specula- 
tions of Democritus to show that, while there were 
gods, they took no interest in the affairs of men. 
He elaborated an atomic theory of the universe, 
holding that only two things exist : atoms and the 
void. All things being atomic and subject to 
change, the fear of gods and the fear of death 
are delusions. Best banish such fears and con- 
centrate attention on this life. Since it is all we 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE GREEKS 111 

have, we ought to make the best of it. He aimed, 
you see, to abandon all extreme positions and all 
impossible quests, and to adapt life to a wise com- 
promise with daily responsibilities. Happiness 
was to be reahsed in a proper co-ordination of de- 
sires, in the enjoyment of the amenities of human 
intercourse, in. the cultivation of friendships and 
the pleasures of social life. 

In brief the ideal of the Stoic was perfection 
through the predominance of will over desire, while 
the ideal of the Epicurean was comfortableness 
in the cultivation and control of desire. 

The chief good according to Epicurus was the 
pursuit of pleasure ; but by pleasure he meant only 
a condition of existence free from pain or want. 
In the avoidance of excess and indulgence, in the 
combination of plain living and high thinking, he 
was a conspicuous example of his teaching. But 
the weakness of the system lies in its loose defini- 
tion of pleasure as the chief good and in giving too 
large an influence to worldly prudence. By leav- 
ing such matters to individual preference it is easy 
to understand why the system broke up into a 
series of lawless tendencies. We must not forget, 
however, that Epicureanism had an immense sig- 
nificance for one of the noblest minds of the last 
century of the Roman republic, and in the '^^De 
Rerum Natura' it attained a dignity and moral 



llg THE RELIGION OF POWER 

strength which gave it wide influence in that age. 
These practical methods of dealing with the 
issues of life represent the ethical quest for safe 
conduct, which manifests itself among the Romans 
in the scepticism of Lucretius, the opportunism 
of Cicero, the humanism of Virgil, and the resig- 
nation of Seneca. Stoicism and Epicureanism 
were final efforts to obtain peace through philoso- 
phy. They had an important bearing on the re- 
ligious situation in the GraBCO-Roman world when 
Christianity began its westward movement. 



LECTURE IV 

THE ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 



LECTURE IV 

THE ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 

Alexander's conquests had, as we have seen, an 
important influence on the social and political life 
of fourth century Greece. His successes further 
enlarged the conception of individual significance 
and, by destroying the old city-state, made man 
a citizen of the world. By undermining ancient 
traditions concerning politics and religion these 
momentous changes brought the question of safe 
conduct to the front as the paramount need of the 
times. The age was impatient with arguments 
and too much in a hurry to concern itself with 
speculative systems. It desired something posi- 
tive, concrete and simple, and was willing to be- 
lieve in dogma and listen to prophecy. It was an 
era of popular preaching and ethical propaganda. 
Under these circumstances Epicureanism and Sto- 
icism arose. And it was due to the fact that the 
moral situation of the Roman world immediately 
preceding the Christian era resembled in many 
important particulars that of fourth century 
Greece, that these philosophies had such a wide in- 

115 



116 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

fluence on the period. In this lecture we shall con- 
sider the ethical quest among the Romans as re- 
flected in the opinions of four great men. We 
shall study it in the scepticism of Lucretius, the 
opportunism of Cicero, the humanism of Virgil 
and the resignation of Seneca, These men ear- 
nestly endeavoured to adjust the human spirit to 
the requirements of the moral nature, but if we are 
to understand why they believed this to be such an 
important problem we must seek the reason in the 
history of those times. 

The last century of the Roman Republic has 
fittingly been called "the terrible century." It 
stands almost alone among the ensanguined pages 
of history. "That period in Italy," says Prof. 
Conway, "had seen twelve separate civil wars, six 
of which had involved many of the provinces; a 
long series of political murders, beginning with the 
Gracchi, and ending with Csesar and Cicero ; five 
deliberate legalised massacres, from the drum head 
court martial which sentenced to death 3000 sup- 
posed followers of Gains Gracchus, to the second 
proscription dictated by Marc Antony. Men still 
spoke with a shudder of the butchery of 7000 
Samnite prisoners in the hearing of the assembled 
senate, and the boy Virgil would meet many men 
who had seen the last act of the struggle with 
Spartacus and his army of escaped gladiators — 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 117 

6000 prisoners nailed on crosses along the whole 
length of the busiest road in Italy, from Rome to 
Capua." ^ 

The causes of these grave political disorders 
were various, but they may be reduced to one: to 
the fell disease which the Greeks called "stasis" 
that attacks political organisms at certain pe- 
riods of their history. Stasis, as Prof. Fowler de- 
fines it, is "to take up a distinctive position in the 
state, with malicious intent towards another 
party." ^ This is illustrated by the oligarchic oath 
quoted by Aristotle: "I will hate the Demos, and 
do it all the harm in my power." Of course, such 
an attitude was fatal to patriotism, for it developed 
into an exaggerated form of partisanship, or what 
socialists call "class consciousness." Stasis usually 
began with friction between the few and the many 
and was always intensified by war; for war in- 
creased the burden of taxation, engendered ani- 
mosity between rivals and developed selfish am- 
bitions. 

This malignant disease of stasis, which destroyed 
the Greek city-state, was epidemic in the last cen- 
tury of the Roman Republic. It is necessary to 
consider the development of a tendency hitherto 
foreign to the Roman temperament. 

^ Virgil's **Messianic Eclogue/* pp. 38-34. 

^ "The City-State of the Greeks and Romans/* p. 254. 



118 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

The misfortunes of a nation often rise from its 
conspicuous successes. The final victory of Rome 
over Carthage was from many points of view a 
vast misfortune. By that victory she won her 
peace, but she also discovered her fatal power for 
conquest. It was the beginning of the end of 
Roman simplicity. The old Romans were farm- 
ers. If they went to war, as they often did, it was 
in defence of their homes, but with the conquest 
of Carthage Rome became a nation of aggressors. 
Victory over a foreign foe developed the passion 
for world dominion. As conquests followed with 
relentless precision, restlessness attacked the body 
politic, and the country was soon overrun with 
foreign soldiers, without a shred of patriotism and 
utterly indifferent to the control of the civil power. 
Factions developed around great leaders, political 
jealousies ripened into fratricidal strife and civil 
war, social disorder and a riot of irresponsible pas- 
sion destroyed the peace of the state. 

Stasis set in with the agrarian disputes of the 
Gracchi, and became epidemic in the next cen- 
tury. All the evils which Thucydides predicted 
would fall on the Greek city-state had fallen on 
Rome. Internal strife was the price she paid for 
world power. 

In addition to this, Rome was exposed to what 
Cumont calls "the peaceful infiltration of the 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 119 

Orient into the Occident." We are just beginning 
to realise the enormous influence of the Orient on 
the early Roman empire. The distinctive achieve- 
ment of the Romans has been their conception of 
law. Almost everything else in art, science and 
religion came to them from the Orient. Even her 
form of government was eventually orientalised 
and most of the evils which resulted in her decline 
and fall came from her contact with foreign peo- 
ples.^ 

In the last century of the republic the passion 
for wealth, luxury and extravagance; the adop- 
tion of foreign fashions, manners and customs 
and the pernicious influence of foreign supersti- 
tions destroyed her old simplicity so that it 
could no longer be said that "the Roman Common- 
wealth stood on ancient character and on men." * 
It was an age of profound disillusion, when ancient 
traditions were questioned, and when men of 
thoughtful mind looked to the future with fore- 
boding. Such an age as this could not but make a 
deep impression on sensitive and earnest natures, 
and its melancholy is reflected in its great litera- 
ture. 

But eras of political disenchantment often occa- 

^Cumont: "Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism/' 
Chapter I, passim. 
* Ennius. 



120 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

sion religious revivals. Prolonged unrest begets 
a passion for peace, and men begin to desire safe 
conduct and moral direction. They are inclined to 
look for compensation for material losses to some 
form of intellectual or spiritual experience. 

The political disorders of the last century of the 
republic made the quest for safe conduct very 
acute. The old rehgion was in a manner of speak- 
ing dead. It was influential in rural districts, 
but had little vital significance for the thoughtful 
cosmopolite. Rome was filling up with new cults, 
coming for the most part from the East. Cybele 
and Isis were there with their splendid promises 
and ornate ritual performances ; other conceptions 
were current, such as astrology, Syrian nature 
cults, and foreign fashions in divination. Judaism 
was not without influence, and many gentile minds 
were in sympathy with its ethical monotheism. 

But none of these cults satisfied the cultivated 
man. He sought peace in some form of philoso- 
phy. The speculative systems of Plato and Aris- 
totle had less influence, however, than the con- 
crete conceptions of Stoic and Epicurean. These 
philosophies had been developed by influences with 
which the Roman was familiar. The break up of 
the city-state and the intensified sense of individual 
importance resulting therefrom, had made the 
question of moral direction paramount. Men 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 121 

wanted peace and quiet in an age of trouble, and 
the reflective Roman found in the moral passion 
and slender speculative structures of these prac- 
tical systems a tranquillity which nothing else could 
afford. Stoicism had a far wider influence than 
Epicureanism, since it was congenial to the Roman 
temperament ; still the latter philosophy had pow- 
erful advocates, and in the person of Lucretius, one 
of the most earnest men of the time, it attained a 
moral grandeur that commended it even to that 
strenuous age. 

The advantage of these systems over more spec- 
ulative types lay in the fact that they were in- 
tensely dogmatic, professedly ethical in their aims, 
and their teaching could be expressed in easily 
remembered maxims. It naturally found its way 
into popular preaching and was a frequent subject 
for discussion in the schools of declamation.^ 

The tendency to philosophic discussion is strik- 
ingly shown in the writings of Cicero, but it was 
the signal achievement of Lucretius that he trans- 
formed a series of loosely related speculations into 
a rigid dogma, characterised by scientific consis- 
tency, poetic fire and spiritual enthusiasm.^ 

The great poem of Lucretius, on the "Nature of 

^ See Boissier: "Tacitus and Other Roman Studies/' Eng. 
Trans., p. 163, passim. 

® Fowler : "Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero," 
p. 329. 



122 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

Things," is a religious phenomena. It probably 
had little influence on his generation, but as an 
expression of opinion on the urgent question of 
moral direction it is of the first importance. This 
poem reveals a mighty intellect of melancholy tem- 
perament and spiritual sensibility, trying to ad- 
just itself to the eternal issues of hfe in the face 
of a most discouraging outlook. "Some men," 
says Henry Osborn Taylor, "live in the eternities, 
and must at their peril keep in tune with them. 
The need of adjustment belongs to them pecu- 
liarly." '^ This,was the inspiration of "De Berum 
Natural 

According to Lucretius the evil of the time had 
a body and a soul. The body consisted of political 
disorders which could be cured by no known pre- 
scription. The soul of evil he finds in a tyranny 
of fear; chiefly the fear of gods, and the fear of 
what might happen after death. "This terror, 
therefore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled 
not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of 
day, but by the aspect and law of nature." ^ Like 
all Epicureans he believed in the existence of gods, 
but he held that they took no interest in human af- 
fairs. They dwell "in their tranquil abodes, which 



^ "Deliverance/* p. 2. 

® "The Nature of Things/* Bohn edition, Munro's trans- 
lation, p. 43. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 123 

neither winds do shake nor clouds drench with 
rains, nor snow congealed by sharp frosts harms 
with hoary fall: an ever cloudless ether o'er cano- 
pies them, and they laugh with light shed largely 
round. Nature, too, supplies all their wants and 
nothing ever impairs their peace of mind." ^ Re- 
ligious ceremonies designed to propitiate the gods 
were groundless and irrational. The fear of what 
might happen after death was equally false, since 
the soul was mortal and perished with the body. 
He developed the Epicurean theory of atoms into 
a rigid dogma in order to prove the truth of these 
contentions. It was best, he thought, to know the 
truth. His aim, you see, was not to make men at 
home in the world, but to get them through it with 
credit. He had no remedy for political disorders, 
and little social passion. He does not expect any 
change for the better. His single aim is to provide 
safe conduct through an intolerable world. Per- 
haps his point of view was that of many cultivated 
men of the time. The paramount need was an 
estimate of life that could quiet the mind. Lucre- 
tius believed he had found this in the atomic theory 
of Epicurus. With invincible dogmatism and pro- 
phetic fervour he preached salvation through the 
study of the nature of things. Since religion and 
immortality were delusions, it were best to rid 

® Op. Cit., pp. 83-84. 



124* THE RELIGION OF POWER 

one's self of such fancies and face the future with 
a tranquil mind. 

A^o man of that period more truly represents the 
urgent need for safe conduct than Lucretius. In 
him we see a spirit stripped bare of all ancient sup- 
ports, devoid of consolations save such as might be 
found within itself, calmly facing a future, than 
which one more hopeless or melancholy could 
hardly be conceived. 

The important thing to remember is that Lucre- 
tius hated religion. His powerful ethical spirit 
turned round upon the religious observances of 
the time with relentless scorn, and his earnest scep- 
ticism cleared the threshing floor of a ruck of su- 
perstitions, and made it easier in the following 
century to believe in rehgion as a moral dynamic^ 
But what did Lucretius mean by religion? When 
we think of religion we think of churches, and 
spiritual relationships based upon a divine revela- 
tion. But of religion such as this, Lucretius knew 
nothing. By ^Weligio" he meant two things : first 
a nervous fear of gods, and secondly, rites and cere- 
monies devised to rid man of this fear. In other 
words "religio^' meant nervousness, dread, super- 
stition. "Religio" manifested itself in rites and 
sacrifices designed to propitiate the gods, and 
while the poet had an instinctive reverence for 
the traditional observances of his race, he re- 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 125 

garded everything that went by the name of cult or 
worship as an expression of superstition. 

There was much in those days to justify this 
notion of rehgion. The notion of an Absolute 
and Infinite God has always been a painful one 
to a mind unassisted by a revelation instinct with 
a noble ethic. Too vast for the comprehension of 
a finite intelligence, it has always been easy to 
break it up into a number of parts and associate 
them with what is visible, familiar and human. 
But so soon as man had made the gods in his own 
likeness, he became dissatisfied with them, and the 
sense of the eternal passing beyond these visible 
and inadequate forms peopled the universe with 
nameless terrors. The Greeks were most success- 
ful in humanising the gods; and yet the altar 
that Paul saw in Athens was significant of the 
fact that men reahsed the impossibihty of express- 
ing the Infinite through finite forms, and had un- 
derwritten the uncomprehended elements of divin- 
ity and worshipped them under the comprehensive 
designation of "unknown gods." 

The consequence of such a tendency has always 
been disastrous. For man began to think of gods 
as dwelling everywhere. They dwelt on the earth 
in birds, and beasts and creeping things ; in trees 
and stones and running brooks. They dwelt in 
the heavens, in the sun and the moon and the silent 



126 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

stars. All these deities assume the character and 
participate in the passions of men. The tyranny 
of elemental spirits was common in the time of 
Lucretius. The nervousness of life which fear of 
the gods inspired was transferred to the gods 
themselves. They, too, were nervous, capricious 
and irritable. You never could tell what a god 
would do; you never could tell what he wanted; 
what would please one might offend another. Be- 
sides you never could be sure where the gods lived, 
and you had to be careful how you moved about 
the world. You might step on a god, or eat him or 
offend him some way ; and although nothing hap- 
pened in this life, yet in the dread Acherusian 
quarters in the under-world the angry god would 
await you with a long-cherished vengeance. 

A layman was helpless before this dread, and it 
delivered him, body and soul, into the hands of the 
professional religionist. A man could not marry, 
go on a journey or make a purchase without pro- 
fessional advice. Armies and fleets were held up 
because the auspices were unfavourable. The 
soothsayer, diviner and religious quack flourished 
on this weakness. The rich had many diviners, 
but the poor had to take their chance. 

The Romans of the last century of the Republic 
were as dependent on the priest as moderns are 
ypon the physician. The fear of gods was analo- 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 12T 

gous to the present-day fear of germs. Disease in 
those times was regarded as due to a dsemon; "if 
you could drive him out you could cure the disease. 
The same sort of thing is now said of bacilli, which, 
however, have the advantage that they can be seen 
under the microscope." ^^ 

This nervous dread was what Lucretius meant 
by ^Weligiof His age was priest-ridden, ignorant 
and superstitious. He was convinced that the only 
way to peace lay through a scientific study of the 
nature of things. At one blow he would destroy 
the fear of gods and the fear of death. It was a 
sorrowful time at best. The world was full of dis- 
order, injustice, slavery and misery; why, then, 
carry a needless burden, when the great book of 
nature lay open, and beside it stood the portentous 
figure of Epicurus — glory of the Greek race — • 
ready to interpret it so that a wayfaring man 
though a fool need not err therein? 

We know that the poet's estimate of religion 
was a mistaken one. His was not the only view 
that could be taken of it even in his day; but 
in so far as 'Weligio" meant superstition Lucretius 
was right. Although he had no moral dynamic 
and lacked positive assurance that he could remedy 
the situation he had diagnosed, still he performed a 
great service in clearing the ground of alien 

i« Lake: "The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul," p. 196, note. 



1^8 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

growths and prepared the way for a view of re- 
ligion more in accord with moral and spiritual 
ideals. 

A word in passing must be said of Cicero. If 
Lucretius represented the scepticism of the age, 
Cicero stood for its opportunism. Prof. Fowler 
calls him "the last-born son of the old city-state." ^^ 
He was fond of philosophic speculation, and espe- 
cially interested in the syncretic movement which 
combined Oriental mysticism with Greek ethics. 
He was also fairly well acquainted with Stoic and 
Epicurean teaching, and at one time in his life had 
been a disciple of the great Syrian Posidonius. 
Posidonius was the most learned man of his time, 
and his aim according to Mr. Bevan was nothing 
less than "to make men at home in the universe." ^^ 
Cicero had long been under his influence, and 
traces of it appear in many of the great politician's 
writings. It can hardly be said, however, that 
Cicero was interested in a personal religion, but 
he thought highly of religious sanctions as ^ids 
to good government. Towards the close of life, 
under accumulating afflictions, he turned to Sto- 
icism for consolation : and by many treatises on the 
nature of the gods, divination, moral questions 

" "Roman Ideas of Deity/* p. 5. 

^^ For a brilliant account of Posidonius, see "Stoics and 
Skeptics," Lecture 3. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 129 

and the like, indicated that he was a seeker after 
God. Fowler thinks that had he lived in an Ori- 
ental city rather than in the metropolis he might 
have been a "God-fearer." ^^ I have often felt 
that under favourable circumstances the same 
might have been said of Lucretius. Both men 
represent attitudes towards the question of safe 
conduct : one the sceptical, the other the opportun- 
ist, yet neither indicates the highest tendency of 
the age. For this we must turn to Virgil. 

Virgil has exercised a powerful influence over 
the world's imagination, not only because of his 
poetic genius but also on account of his religious 
sensibility. He was the most spiritual man of 
the heathen world: a representative of a religious 
tendency that commends itself because it is rooted 
in the homely soil of humanism. 

It is interesting to compare him with Lucretius. 
Both men felt that the evils of the time had 
reached a climax. Both had a healthy dislike 
for the crowded life of cities, and a passionate 
love for the open country, but they differed widely 
in their outlook. Virgil believed that the world 
was young, a mighty faith in that age of gloom. 
He stood in the darkness, it was true, but he was 
waiting for the dawn. The golden age was re- 
turning upon the world: that is why his poetry 

" Op. Cit., pp. 4-5. 



130 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

is so animated, why its most sombre passages are 
full of charm. It is the charm of an eternally 
youthful nature. He preached the worth of or- 
dinary man, the glory of the great past, and the 
lasting significance of ancient mythologies. He 
is looking for a better era: a time of brotherly in- 
tercourse, an epoch of universal kindliness and 
poHtical stability which will be ushered in through 
some personal agency. 

It was far otherwise with Lucretius. He, too, 
stood in the darkness but he looked for no dawn. 
The world was in its decrepitude, and the sun of 
life had set forever. The universe was about to 
break up. What was the meaning of the strange 
mistakes of nature and premature old age; of the 
collapse of ancient states and the passing of old 
simplicities, and this oncoming tumult of riot and 
disturbance and unrestrained passion, but that 
soon the mighty atomic forces which rage and 
storm beyond the flaming walls of the world will 
invade our domain, and all things vanish away, 
leaving not a rack behind. The peace of Lucre- 
tius is the peace of hopeless abandon and heroic en- 
durance ; the peace of Virgil is the peace of restful 
confidence and serene faith in the future. He 
was as earnest as Lucretius, and as catholic in his 
tastes as Cicero; but he lacked the scepticism of 
the one as he escaped the opportunism of the 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 131 

other. What was the secret of his optimism? I 
find it in three things: his spiritual sensibility, his 
tempered Stoicism, and his splendid faith in the 
power of personality. 

His spiritual sensibility is revealed by his faith 
in the native religion. The ancient mythologies, 
which to Cicero were useful only as political ex- 
pedients, were to the sensitive spirit of Virgil in- 
stinct with reality, all the more impressive because 
tempered by racial relationships and glorified by a 
splendid tradition. He believed that these old 
ritual performances embodied the religious experi- 
ence of his people, a spirit of devotion that still 
lived in rural communities, and kept the altar 
fires burning in many a lowly dwelling. The an- 
cient religion had united the gods and men in a 
living bond, and in spite of the collapse of the 
city-state and the oncoming tide of cosmopolitan- 
ism, the poet believed in the vitality of the native 
faith, and, like a captive Jew, waited for its restor- 
ation. 

The Stoicism of Virgil was tempered by his 
humanity. The Stoic consecrated the new experi- 
ence of cosmopolitanism by a doctrine of universal 
brotherhood. This sense of human solidarity had 
been steadily growing, and had come into Roman 
life in union with certain Semitic elements which 
had tempered and humanised the hard old creed. 



132 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

This tempered Stoicism, for which Posidonius was 
largely responsible, was peculiarly acceptable to 
Virgil. He had the rare gift of making and de- 
serving friends. A winsome spirit, he moved 
through his age, gathering the finest and best in 
his environment, and ever giving expression to 
his faith in man as man. Living in the metropoUs, 
sought after by the great and powerful, the friend 
of Augustus and frequently moving amid the 
splendid wickedness of the age, he remained to the 
end unspotted and unspoiled, a frank, open- 
hearted humanist. His genius embodied the Stoic 
strength without its hardness, and his cleanness of 
heart kept him unsoiled in the midst of evil with- 
out loss of social passion or pubhc efficiency. 

Because of his faith in human nature, he felt 
that a time was coming when the goodness of God 
would be brought in sympathetic touch with the 
pathetic needs of the age through some powerful 
personal agency. The last century of the Repub- 
lic was distinguished by nothing so much as a loss 
of faith in its political institutions. What could 
hold society together and impart stability to gov- 
ernment? The old notions did not suit the new 
needs. The age wanted a strong man to set it 
right. The career of Julius Caesar brought the 
notion of personal dominion to full consciousness ; 
and when his death renewed the strife of civil war 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 133 

the age eagerly turned to Augustus and invested 
him with imperial power. Augustus filled the 
imagination of the time, notably that of Virgil. 
There was a feeling abroad that something more 
than right principles was needed to safeguard the 
age from moral anarchy ; this feeling passing over 
into religion developed into the cult of Emperor 
worship. Virgil keenly felt the need of personal 
leadership. His great Roman ^neas might ap- 
pear in some strong man. We need not insist that 
his fourth eclogue is a prophecy of Christ, but in 
this poem he predicts the return of the golden 
age, which, under the leadership of a child about 
to be born, shall exceed other ages in peace and 
good will. In some respects this conception re- 
sembles Isaiah's Messianic predictions, so much so 
in fact that some scholars have maintained that 
Virgil was influenced by Jewish prophecy.^* 
Whether this be true or not is unimportant; what 
is of moment here is the great confession of faith 
in the power of personality, a confidence in a lead- 
ership that should stabilise government and give 
peace to the individual. Virgil's great service to 
his age consisted in shaping up its instinctive desire 
for personal direction, in arousing hopeful antici- 
pations concerning a change in the political and 

^* Virgil's "Messianic Eclogue^" Mayor, Fowler and Con- 
way, pp. 115-131. 



134 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

spiritual situation, and from this point of view 
he may be regarded as a forerunner of Christian- 
ity. It is extremely difficult to resist the convic- 
tion that had he been more favourably situated, 
he, too, might have been a "God-fearer." At any 
rate he well deserves the praise of Dante : 

"Thou didst like him, who goes by night, and 
carries the light behind him, and profits not him- 
self, but makes the persons following him wise, 
when thou saidst: *The world is renewed. Justice 
returns, and the primeval time of man, and a new 
progeny descends from heaven.' Through thee I 
became a poet, and through thee a Christian." ^^ 

We now pass to consider a great figure of the 
following century: a man whose teaching illus- 
trates the strength and weakness of Stoicism in 
contact with practical life — I mean Seneca. 

Naturally it may be asked : Why prefer Seneca 
to Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius? The answer is 
that Epictetus represents Stoicism in detachment, 
a Stoicism of contemplation rather than action. 
His theory is worthy of high consideration, but the 
range of his activities was so limited as to be of 
little value for our purpose. On the other hand 
Marcus Aurelius was a public character of large 
capacity. He realised Plato's dream of "a phi- 
losopher on the throne;" but his teachings illus- 

^*^ "Purgatory,'* vv. 67-74, Norton's translation. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 135 

trate the decrepitude of a system that was a weary 
old creed in the Antonine Age. His attitude is 
that of a judge rather than of an advocate; more- 
over he is too introspective for our purpose. Dr. 
Gilder sleeve aptly calls him "a keeper of a patho- 
logical peepshow." ^^ 

What we wish to knov/ is how will a Stoic meet 
the trials and temptations of such a period as the 
Neronian reign of terror? We know what the 
Stoic professed; but we should like to know how 
he behaved as a member of society and man of 
affairs. Such considerations make the career of 
Seneca of immense importance, because it exhibits 
better than that of his contemporaries the strength 
and weakness of the Stoic position. 

Seneca was born in Spain and brought to Rome 
in the last years of the great Augustus. He 
grew up in the reign of the gloomy Tiberius and 
barely escaped with his life during the frantic 
reign of Caligula. He attained a high position 
in the state during the Claudian regime j, but fall- 
ing the victim of a plot was banished to Corsica, 
from whence after eight weary years he was 
recalled to become the tutor of Nero. He 
diligently tried to form the character of his royal 
disciple on a noble model; his treatise on "Clem- 
ency" written for Nero's guidance is a mirror for 

^^ "Essays and Studies/' p. 300. 



136 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

princes, and is one of his finest productions. For 
a period he was one of Nero's chief ministers, but 
his influence on his capricious master was slight 
and always dangerous. His relation to Nero was 
represented in caricatures of the time as that of 
a butterfly acting as charioteer to a dragon.^ "^ 
Eventually the unnatural relation was broken off, 
and Seneca retired to his villa and gave himself 
to philosophic contemplation, the society of friends 
and the preparation for death. He died, finally, 
by his own hand at the command of Nero during 
the Pisonian conspiracy. 

The character of Seneca is full of violent con- 
trasts and these often appear in his writings. Per- 
haps there never was a man of such intellectual 
force and moral sensibility so entangled in a 
world that he despised, yet lacked strength of 
character to forsake. Rich beyond the dreams of 
avarice, he is constantly preaching the glory of 
poverty. He knew the burden and the danger of 
wealth. "A great fortune is a great slavery," he 
writes to Polybius.^^ It was his wealth rather 
than his supposed complicity in the conspiracy of 
Piso that made him an object of Nero's vengeance. 
While professing Stoic principles he often lived 
in Epicurean surroundings. Obliged by public 

" Grant: "The Ethics of Aristotle," Vol. I, p. 851. 
^^ "Minor Dialogues," Bohn edition, p. 360. 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 137 

duty to mingle in corrupt society, he vainly longed 
for quiet and seclusion. Graver things have been 
said of him. There are tales of shameless intrigue 
and possibly he was implicated in the murder of 
Agrippina. As a youth it is likely he had a fair 
share in the vices and follies of his time. The 
truth is, Seneca was naturally disinclined towards 
•corrupt society and under favourable circum- 
stances would have more thoroughly realised the 
Stoic ideal; but situated as he was, his strength 
and weakness are alike revealed in almost every 
action. During his Corsican exile the brother of 
Polybius died. Polybius was the rich and influ- 
ential freedman of the Emperor; and to him on 
that occasion the exile wrote a letter of consolation, 
ostensibly to offer his sympathy, but in reality to 
enlist the powerful henchman's services in securing 
his recall. In this letter he indulges in outrageous 
flattery of Claudius, when at heart we know he 
thoroughly despised the man. If we desire to 
know his real opinion of the Emperor we should 
read the "hudus de Morte Claudii/' sl pitiless 
satire on the supposed efforts of Claudius to enter 
into heaven.^ ^ In fact Seneca was something of a 
sycophant and timeserver, and it is easy to hold the 
opinion that has prevailed from Dion Cassius to 

*^ Translated in the Loeb Classics under the title: "The 
Pumpkiniflcation of Claudius." 



138 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

Carlyle that he was a trimmer and a hypocrite. 
In some respects he is very like Bunyan's By- 
Ends. But there is something more to be said. If 
through weakness he often descends into the sink of 
iniquity, which in those days yawned at the feet of 
pubhc men, he rises frequently to sublime heights 
of moral aspiration and spiritual contemplation. 
In his last days the man was penitent, contrite, 
and passionately interested in moral reformation. 
At heart he wished to do right, but found him- 
self often obliged to make concessions that he 
knew to be wrong. He lacked power to break 
away from an evil environment; he sought in 
Stoicism something that would give him strength 
to check inherent weakness, and he probably suc- 
ceeded as well as any well-meaning man of his 
age. It was easy for Epictetus to lay down the 
law in his state of detachment ; it was pleasant for 
Marcus Aurelius to indulge in introspective specu- 
lations during the leisure of his military cam- 
paigns; but it was altogether another matter to 
live like a Stoic in the circles of society where 
Seneca's interests lay; and the man's inconsis- 
tencies make him all the more interesting as show- 
ing the strength and weakness of Stoic principles 
in contact with real life. 

Stoicism was Seneca's religion. Many of his 
precepts are very like those of Holy Writ, and an 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 139 

interesting parallel might be drawn between his 
teaching and that of Paul. This indicates that 
in his powerful intellect the ethical significance of 
life was being sharpened by an intensified sense of 
God. 

He had, as Prof. Dill has indicated, to an un- 
usual degree the power of moral diagnosis. He 
had the fatal gift of insight, and looked deeply into 
the heart of the age. He saw its sins and weak- 
nesses, its sullen hates and vain ambitions, its 
keen desires and abortive remedies. More than all 
else he was aware of its profound melancholy. 
"Look round you, I pray you, upon all mortals," 
he writes to Polybius; "everywhere there is ample 
and constant reason for weeping. . . . Tears will 
fail us sooner than causes for shedding them. Do 
you not see what sort of life it must be that Nature 
has promised us men when she makes us weep as 
soon as we are born?" ^^ 

Seneca's insight was due to his perception of 
moral reality; he seemed to feel as if the drab 
life of the age was overlooked by an unattainable 
Purity. He had no adequate remedy for evil 
save to fall back on the familiar principle of Stoi- 
cism that what could not be cured must be endured. 
And his chief aim was to temper this endurance 
with sympathetic understanding. He was a good 

20 Op. Cit., p. 357. 



140 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

diagnostician, but a poor healer, and he knew it. 
He is not willing to preach the hard old creed 
of self-sufficiency, because his own sad experi- 
ence had made him realise the need of a dynamic. 
But he tempered his Stoicism with humanism. 
He was full of pity and compassion for the over- 
wrought age, and so he became, to use a phrase 
of Prof. Dill, "a spiritual director." ^^ Philosophy 
became a quest for consolation and a meditation 
on death. He shows us better than any contem- 
porary writer how philosophy was ready to aban- 
don the effort to set things right, and accommodate 
itself to immediate human necessity. The prime 
need of the time was for consolation, and so 
Seneca became a consoler, a lay-pastor who was 
among the people as one : 

**Wlio most has suffered^ takes dejectedly 
His seat upon the intellectual throne. 
And all liis store of sad experiences he 
Lays bare of wretched days; 
Tells his misery's birth and growth and signs. 
And how the dying spark was fed, 
And how the breast was soothed, and how the head 
And all his hourly anodynes." ^^ 

We have now traced the ethical quest for safe 
conduct from its inception in the age of enlighten- 
ment among the Greeks to its culmination in the 
resignation and sadness of the Roman Stoic 

2^ "Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius,'* Book 
III, Chapter 1. 

22 Matthew Arnold- "The Scholar Gipsy." 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 141 

Seneca. The real test of the religious status of 
a people is not what is manifest in the lowest 
expression of life, but what is missing from the 
highest reaches of aspiration. As M. Denis 
remarks: "When one wishes to find the conscience 
of a people, it is not always in their actual be- 
haviour that it should be sought for: it is often en- 
tirely present in their prayers and in their re- 
grets." ^^ And this is the impression such a review 
of ethical opinion makes upon the mind of the 
impartial reader. The moral passion of that age 
was running far in advance of its moral power. 
Its main problem was how to translate "gnosis" 
into "dunamis" It had great ideals, but was 
keenly aware of their impotence. What it wanted 
was a virtue-making power that could transform 
precept into practice and ideals into character. 
The distinctive service of the ethical thinkers of the 
period was in making the problem explicit ; in de- 
fining its limits, in sifting out the various methods 
of accommodating the human spirit to the imperi- 
ous need for adjustment, and finally, by their 
confessions of futility, showing the utter inade- 
quacy of any scheme of reform based on human 
nature. 

These great men could draw near and hear what 

2^ Quoted by Angus : "The Environment of Early Chris- 
tianity/' p. 80. 



142 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

God would say, but few there were who could 
hear for others. Not one of them, unless it be 
Virgil, had any message of encouragement for 
the masses of the people. They have nothing to 
say for the plain man. Their ways of adjustment 
were open only to certain highly endowed classes ; 
and eventually within these favoured groups the 
pessimism, sadness, and resignation serve better 
than anything in that age to show that what the 
world needed was not a diagnostician but a healer, 
not a reformer but a Saviour. 

Even then, had they been aware of it, there were 
some who were looking for adjustment in another 
direction. Another teaching was abroad in the 
land. You would not find it in the temples of the 
mystery religions nor in the lecture halls of the 
philosophers, but you could hear it proclaimed in 
the humble synagogue of the Jew of the disper- 
sion. Many gentiles had broken away from the 
native religion; they were still less inclined to 
adopt one of the Oriental cults then epidemic in the 
empire; neither were they looking for adjustment 
in the direction of philosophy. Their keenest wish 
was for a dynamic personality functioning in hu- 
man history. They were waiting for a deliverer, a 
redeemer ; and while waiting for him had grouped 
themselves, "a fringe of devout heathenism," round 
the Jewish synagogue. They were attracted by the 



ETHICAL QUEST AMONG THE ROMANS 143 

ethical monotheism of Judaism and inspired with 
its Messianic hopes. This brings us to the Jew, 
and opens the way for a study of a third phase of 
the quest for safe conduct, that manifestation of 
rehgious experience which seeks adjustment with 
God by means of legal obedience to a revealed law. 



LECTURE V 

THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 



LECTURE V 

THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 

In turning from the gentile to the Jew we pass 
from the region of speculation to the domain of 
revealed religion. The primitive religious impulse 
has been defined as "man's effective desire to be in 
right relation to the Power manifesting itself in 
the universe." The imperious need for adjust- 
ment led to certain quests or pilgrimages. Hither- 
to we have considered the pilgrimage of the imagi- 
nation which culminated in the mystery religions, 
and the pilgrimage of the mind which manifested 
itself in the ethical speculations of the Greeks and 
Romans. yVe now take up the pilgrimage of the 
conscience which reached its climax in the legalism 
of the Jews. 

The consideration of this question, however, 
has certain limitations. We are not to ask what 
the religion of Israel was intended to be under the 
providence of God ; nor what that religion was in 
the teaching of the prophets, but what it came to 
be under the distorting influences of Jewish par- 
ties. We wish to understand why the Jew rejected 

147 



148 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

his Messiah in the age when Christianity began its 
westward movement. 

The failure of the Jew is one of the great trage- 
dies of history. Christianity met with greater re- 
ceptivity among gentiles than among Jews ; God- 
fearers pressed into the kingdom ahead of the 
chosen people, and a race that God had trained for 
centuries rejected its Messiah while heathen peo- 
ples received Him gladly. How shall this failure 
be accounted for? The explanation lies deep in 
the history of the past. 

In becoming the special object of Divine provi- 
dence the Jew had three distinct advantages over 
other peoples. In the first place he had a revela- 
tion of the true God. The monotheism of Israel 
was the direct outcome of revelation and not the 
product of a slow evolution. Not only did the 
Jew have the idea of one God, but this notion of 
Deity was founded not as among heathen peo- 
ples on unlimited power, but upon character. The 
one God was a holy and righteous God. In the 
second place, the Jew enjoyed a covenant rela- 
tion to God ; he was a chosen instrument of Divine 
providence. In the third place the Jew was in 
possession of a Divine law. All these features gave 
him a distinct advantage over other peoples. 

What then was the notion of salvation held by 
the average Jew? How did he answer the ques- 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 149 

tion of getting right with God? This is a fair 
question, and cannot be answered by a study of 
the prophetic teaching, or of the function of the 
law as it was interpreted by special revelation. Our 
question is rather with the notion of religion as it 
lay in the popular mind. The rehgious problem 
of the Jew was less complex than that of the gen- 
tile. The gentile had to determine the nature 
and attitude of the power manifesting itself in 
the universe from speculations of various kinds; 
and he never could be sure that he was right. With 
the Jew, on the contrary, the problem was very 
simple. The power manifested itself in a revela- 
tion. The supreme God had chosen Israel for a 
special destiny and given it a law. How then 
did the idea of right relations with God appear 
to the average Jew? 

Apparently it passed through two distinct 
stages.^ From the settlement in Palestine to the 
return from the Babylonian exile, the ordinary 
Jew had a very simple answer to the question of 
right relations. Being a member of the chosen 
race and a child of Abraham, he reasoned that he 
was born in right relation with God. Believing 
that he was the heir to all the covenant promises, 
he does not appear to have seriously questioned his 
religious status. Eventually this led to the de- 

^ F. B. Westcott: "St. Paul and Justification/' pp. 11-14. 



150 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

velopment of a conventional morality in harmony 
with the ritual and legal requirements of the law of 
Moses ; and finally this notion of ritual obedience 
came into conflict with the moral sense of the race, 
especially with the teaching of the prophets. We 
are quite familiar with the stubborn resistance of 
the popular religion to all forms of prophetic in- 
fluence. It was not possible for the average Jew 
to question his religious status so long as he be- 
lieved that he was born in right relations with 
God. The question of safe conduct as an individ- 
ual problem does not appear to have been raised 
until after the exile. 

But the Babylonian captivity produced very 
profound changes in the Jewish view of religion. 
It had much the same general effect on the Jew 
as the collapse of the city-state had upon the 
spirit of the Greeks and Romans. So long as 
Jerusalem stood inviolate the average Jew lived 
undisturbed in his national exclusiveness. He was 
deaf to the warnings of conscience, and equally 
indifferent to the prophetic teaching. But when 
Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians it 
meant the end of the old theocratic state. The 
death blow to national security brought the ques- 
tion of spiritual relationships definitely within the 
ken of individual consciousness. 

The exile sharpened the sense of ethical mono- 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 151 

theism; it made the average Jew aware of the 
spirituahty of God ; it brought the will of the Al- 
mighty into direct contact with a sensitive con- 
science. The natural result was to intensify the 
conception of spiritual reahty. 

The new sense of spiritual reality broke down 
the two barriers which hitherto had enabled the 
Jew to live at ease in Zion. On the one hand* it 
substituted the church for the state. The old 
theocratic state having ceased with the fall of 
Jerusalem, a new notion, that of a spiritual com- 
munity, came into the mind of the Jew, and right 
status with God was conceived as a personal rather 
than a national one. On the other hand, by placing 
emphasis on the moral rather than the ritual as- 
pects of the law — since with the fall of Jerusalem 
he also lost contact with the temple worship — it 
sharpened the sense of individual responsibility and 
made the quest for safe conduct a personal one. 
For the first time, the average Jew became aware 
of the force of prophetic teaching. It was better 
to obey than sacrifice, and righteousness was be- 
lieved to be more acceptable than burnt offerings. 
The new feeling of spiritual reality had destroyed 
conmiunal morality and developed the notion of 
personal morality. The primacy of individual 
life was distinctly taught by Ezekiel. One of the 
common complaints of the exiles was that they 



152 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

were suffering for the sins of their fathers. "Our 
fathers have eaten sour grapes," they said, "and 
our teeth are set on edge." But Ezekiel told them 
that this proverb should no longer be current in 
Israel, for "the soul that sinneth, it shall die. The 
son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither 
shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the 
righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, 
and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon 
him." 2 

The net result of the exile was to bring the 
question of safe conduct to the front as a problem 
for the individual. This led to a development of 
vast significance for the future of Israel. 

From the beginning of their return from the 
Babylonian captivity, the Jews were troubled by 
two tendencies — a nationalist tendency and a cos- 
mopolitan tendency. On the one hand some 
wished to keep Israel exclusive and separate from 
other nations; they were ambitious to restore the 
race to its old position as a separate state. On the 
other hand some felt the attraction of Persian in- 
fluence. They were in favour of a more liberal 
policy of dealing with other peoples. One was a 
tendency towards spirituality, the other a drift 
towards secularism. 

This difference of opinion was very acute when 

xviii: 20. 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 153 

Ezra began his work of reform. His problem 
was a dual one. It was important at the outset 
to secure national solidarity. He was afraid of 
the cosmopolitan tendency because he believed that 
if this policy should prevail the Jew would lose 
his racial distinctiveness. But it was clear that the 
old city-state could not be restored. The bond of 
union, then, could not be a political one. It must 
be distinctly religious. He solved the political 
diflSculty by dealing with it from the standpoint of 
a religious reformer. But the idea of religion 
needed definition, because the spiritual experience 
of the exile had subordinated ceremoniaHsm to 
moral considerations, and the problem of right 
relations had become a matter for conscience to 
determine. Obviously he could not base his re- 
ligious hopes on a repetition of the old temple serv- 
ices ; these were still important, but they were not 
then fundamental. Ezra, therefore, determined 
to make the moral law the basis of national solidar- 
ity; and this was highly expedient, since it was in 
harmony with the new spiritual requirements of 
the individual. The Jew could no longer be sat- 
isfied with a communal morality ; neither could he 
satisfy his conscience by the reflection that he was 
right with God because he was a child of Abra- 
ham. He had outgrown this view. He must 
find a basis of right relations in something that he 



154 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

could do. But since he could not be content with 
ritual observances he was compelled to develop his 
religious activities in harmony with the moral 
aspect of life. In brief he must find an ethical 
sanction for conduct. 

Ezra rightly comprehended the need of the 
time, and endeavoured to satisfy it with a fresh 
promulgation of the law of Moses. Under the 
pre-exilic regime the ordinary Jew was content 
with racial relationships ; but under the post-exilic 
regime he adjusts himself to God through legal 
relationships. This new basis for national sepa- 
rateness, conforming as it did so accurately with 
the need of the times, sufficiently accounts for the 
success of Ezra's reforms. The secular party, 
which desired more liberal relations with gentiles, 
was defeated by the religious party which de- 
sired to preserve racial exclusiveness by means 
of a legal bond. The secularists gravitated to- 
wards the temple and its ritual services and even- 
tually assumed the duties of the priests, while the 
religious party, being in the majority, gravitated 
towards the law, and eventually became the domi- 
nant influence in the synagogue worship. 

But a new development immediately set in, 
because the law had to be interpreted, and the 
new order of Scribes arose in Israel, whose duty 
it was to expound and explain the law. But the 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 155 

law not only required exposition, but also ad- 
justment and expansion to meet the constantly 
growing needs of the people. In pre-exilic times 
this was the work of the prophets, but since in 
post-exilic times the voice of prophecy was si- 
lenced, the duty came into the hands of the Scribes. 
And the interpretations and expansions of the 
Scribes developed a body of oral tradition known 
as the unwritten law, and was so closely identified 
with the written law as to be regarded of equal 
importance; and the composite structure was 
finally accepted as the standard authority for 
Jewish religion. 

As time passed the religious and secular ten- 
dencies drifted further apart and began to crys- 
tallise into distinct parties with different policies 
of government and conflicting national ideals. 
The secular party identified itself with the temple 
services, while the religious party concentrated 
its interest on the interpretation of the written 
and oral law and the development of the syna- 
gogue worship; until towards the close of the 
second century, B. C, we find them with specific 
names. The secular tendency associated with the 
temple worship developed into the party of the 
Sadducees, while the religious tendency asso- 
ciated with the synagogue developed into the 
party of the Pharisees ; and these parties were di- 



156 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

rectly responsible for the tragic failure of the 
Jew. 

The Sadducees were the direct descendants of 
the priestly party which towards the close of the 
Greek period wished to Hellenise the Palestinian 
Jews.^ They were a cosmopolitan party whose 
religious interests were limited to the conserva- 
tion of the temple ritual and the enjoyment of 
priestly privileges; and for the preservation of 
these rights they were always willing to compro- 
mise with gentile influences in behalf of the 
status quo. As a rule they were of the nobil- 
ity. Religion was an expedient in the interest of 
worldly position. The Sadducee ordinarily was 
a man of culture and refinement, a creature of 
loose and often sceptical views and at heart a sec- 
ularist. His opposition to Jesus was based less 
on a religious than a political ground. He ad- 
vocated the crucifixion of the Saviour on the 
ground that His mission was a seditious one. It 
was better, in his view, that one man should die 
than that the whole nation should perish. Apart 
from this aspect, his influence on the problem of 
safe conduct was negligible. 

The Pharisee, on the contrary, is the most in- 
teresting, as he is the most pathetic figure in Jew- 

® Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible: Article "Sadducees." 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 167 

ish history after the exile.^ From the beginning of 
that momentous experience there had been a re- 
ligious or separatist party in Jerusalem. Dur- 
ing subsequent changes of fortune, this party 
had consistently exalted the written and oral laws 
above ritual performances; and as consistently 
feared and opposed every attempt to bring 
Judaism into harmony with the cosmopolitan ten- 
dencies of the age. The world had outgrown sim- 
ple conceptions of government, and since Alex- 
ander's conquests the East and West had been in 
intimate contact; still there were many Jews who 
honestly believed that the wave of cosmopolitan- 
ism could be successfully resisted ; and as the gen- 
tile world pressed hard upon the little nation, the 
party of separation persistently emphasised a le- 
gal relation to God as the basis for racial solidar- 
ity. Towards the close of the second century B. 
C, the tendency of separation had developed into 
a powerful party known as the Pharisees. 

The Pharisees diflPered from the Sadducees in 
many important particulars. Fundamentally they 
were a religious party, while the Sadducees were 
secularists. But there were other differences. The 
Pharisees stoutly maintained the authority of the 

* Hastings, Op. Cit.^ Article, "Pharisees." For an ap- 
preciation of the Pharisee, see Herford's "Pharisaism." 
Crown Theological Library. 



158 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

oral law and put it on a level with the law of 
Moses. They were full of missionary zeal. Our 
Saviour said that they would "compass sea and 
land to make one proselyte." ^ They were men 
of the synagogue rather than of the temple, but 
were chiefly distinguished by their principle of 
separation. They took solemn vows to have no 
dealings with gentiles, and they were not willing 
to give religious privileges to the "people of the 
land." They were zealously interested in the in- 
terpretation of the written and the oral law, and 
in the time of Christ the traditions of the elders 
had assumed such a complicated form that it was 
difficult to distinguish them from the original de- 
posit of revelation. Moreover they had enlarged 
the sphere of the ceremonial law until it compre- 
hended the most minute phases of conduct. 

The Pharisees were the most religious men of 
their age, the Puritans of the first century before 
Christ, and we are obliged to recognise their ear- 
nestness and sincerity. They preserved a spiritual 
view of religion in the era of syncretism which fol- 
lowed Alexander's conquests, when so many re- 
ligions and philosophies lost their distinctive char- 
acter. Moreover we must admit that the vices of 
the Pharisees were not personal, but those of the 
system. They were victims largely of conscien- 

^ Matthew xxiii:15. 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 159 

tious wrong-headedness, and their influence over 
later Judaism was paramount. 

What was the source of Pharisaic influence? 
To answer this we must return to the question 
raised by the Babylonian exile. That question 
was: How can a man get right with God? The 
exile had taught the Jew that the old notion of 
right relations through Abrahamic descent was 
not sufficient. A new feeling of individual re- 
sponsibility forced him to seek for a personal 
method of satisfying his conscience. The strength 
of the Pharisee's position lay in the fact that he 
answered this question in a way that was in many 
respects adequate for the needs of the time. 

The Pharisee held that a right relation with 
God could be obtained by means of legal obedi- 
ence to a revealed law. Originally the law was 
contained in the ten commandments, but since 
prophecy had ceased it became necessary to elab- 
orate the original law so as to meet new condi- 
tions; hence had developed a vast body of tradi- 
tions and interpretations known as the oral law. 
The law, written and oral, was the only rule of 
faith and practice. The law had the advantage 
of being concrete. Men felt that they must do 
something to be saved. It was this feeling that 
gave such great influence to the Scribes and Phar- 
isees. The great tradition eventually assumed a 



160 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

Divine significance and the Pharisees began to 
teach the doctrine of the eternity of the law. From 
many points of view the real God of the Pharisee 
was the law. 

But the law was given to the chosen people 
only ; obedience was the religious bond of the Jew- 
ish race, and its perfect working seemed to depend 
on a restoration of the state to its former inde- 
pendence. The supremacy of the law was bound 
up with a revival of nationahsm, and this concep- 
tion of the mission of the Jew determined the 
characteristic points of view of the Pharisee in 
the time of Christ. First, he insisted that man 
was saved by the law, that the law was eternal 
and unchangeable, and he was determined to re- 
sist any change or innovation. He consistently 
opposed Jesus because He woiild not accept his 
view of the law. The intense patriotism of the 
Pharisee led him to interpret destiny in national 
rather than in spiritual terms ; at least he regarded 
spiritual dominion as conditioned by national in- 
dependence, and this led him to think of his Mes- 
siah as an earthly rather than as a spiritual ruler. 

Both powerful parties among the Jews ex- 
pected a Messiah, and both looked for national 
security as a result of His reign. But while the 
Sadducee thought of political security as an end, 
the Pharisee regarded it as a means only. I think 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 161 

the Sadducee would have been content with a 
Messiah subject to Roman rule. He would have 
been satisfied with any phase of political life that 
allowed him to enjoy unmolested his priestly priv- 
ileges. If this new relationship permitted him to 
indulge his cosmopolitan tendencies, so much the 
better. 

But the Pharisee held a sterner view. Political 
security was a necessary means of attaining 
spiritual dominion, and he would have been 
content with nothing less than a restoration of 
the old theocratic state, and a complete separa- 
tion of the Jew from gentile influence. He was 
not afraid of a revolution. In fact he wished for 
it, and probably expected the Messiah to begin 
it. The Sadducee feared nothing so much as sedi- 
tion; hence the secularist opposed Jesus because 
His principles seemed inimical to the status 
quo; the rehgious enthusiast opposed Him be- 
cause His teaching was hostile to Pharisaic inter- 
pretations of the law. 

It is easy to understand why the Pharisee mis- 
conceived the Messianic mission; it is also easy 
to comprehend his failure to accept Christianity. 
But his failure was significant of another thing. 
It was significant of the breakdown of the idea of 
salvation based on legal observances; and it is 



162 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

with this aspect of the question that we are mainly 
concerned. 

The Pharisaic system was the best product of 
later Judaism; in fact it was the best the Jew 
could offer to gentiles; and its failure to accom- 
plish the desired result is an impressive illustra- 
tion of the failure of the third great quest for 
safe conduct, which was one of the distinguishing 
features of the religious situation during the west- 
ward movement of Christianity. 

The Pharisaic system failed for three reasons: 
it misconceived the law of Moses; its conception 
of religion could not satisfy the moral sense; and 
it could not successfully resist foreign influences. 

The Pharisee misconceived the law of Moses. 
He believed that the law had been given as the 
way of salvation, but this is contrary to the teach- 
ing of the Scriptures. What was the Biblical 
function of the law? This is an important ques- 
tion, and can be answered, I think, in a simple 
way. The function of the law was a dual one : it 
was that of a diagnostician and of a schoolmaster. 

In the first place the law was given in order 
that it might diagnose a moral situation that called 
for redemption. A law was needed to define sin, 
since where there is no law there is no clear con- 
sciousness of sin. From the beginning man had 
been haunted by a sense of evil ; by a feeling that 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 163 

he was not right with God. It was moral uneasi- 
ness that developed the primitive religious impulse 
into "an effective desire to be in right relations 
to the Power manifesting itself in the universe." 
A law written on the heart, while effective in 
making man uneasy, could not without further 
definition work a spiritual change in his view of 
his need. The function of the law was to diagnose 
the trouble, to create the notion of sin. It did 
this in two ways. The Shorter Catechism defines 
sin as "any want of conformity unto, or transgres- 
sion of, the law of God." On the one hand, sin 
has a horizontal aspect. Before the law came 
man did what was right in his own eyes; lines of 
behaviour crossed and recrossed each other with- 
out interference; but when the law was given, a 
straight line was drawn through human conduct, 
and at every point man's actions appeared cross- 
ing and recrossing this line. That is the meaning 
of transgression. The law created the notion of 
sin as disobedience and lawlessness ; it revealed sin 
in its positive or commission aspect. On the other 
hand sin has a perpendicular aspect. Before the 
law came man was aware of not being in right rela- 
tions with God. Something was wrong with his 
character structure, something lacking, but what 
he could not tell but vaguely; but when the law 
was given, a plumb line was dropped down beside 



164 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

the character structure and it was seen to be out 
of plumb. This created the notion of sin as a 
want of conformity, of sin in its negative or omis- 
sion aspect. The effect of the law was to sharpen 
and make definite what was implicit in experience. 
Transgression and want of conformity were the 
elements always present in the life of a fallen man. 

In the second place the law was given to act as 
a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. A school- 
master in the old days was not a teacher, but an 
attendance officer. It was his duty to bring the 
pupil to the school, and when he turned him over 
to the teacher his work was done. This is Paul's 
argument in Galatians. ^ The law revealed man's 
desperate situation. It was a situation calling 
for remedy. The moral law diagnosed the situa- 
tion, and the ceremonial law, through its types and 
sacrifices, was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. 
Christ was the Lamb of God who came to take 
away the sins of the world. And the law was most 
efficient. If the moral law made man aware of 
his need, the ceremonial law suggested an ade- 
quate remedy. 

But the Pharisee misconceived the law. In- 
stead of regarding it in its Scriptural light, he 
turned it into the way of salvation; and under 

«iii:19-25. 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 165 

his skilful manipulation it became a burdensome 
imposition upon an already overloaded people. 

The Pharisaic system failed, because, by rigidly 
limiting the law to externals, it failed to satisfy 
a growing moral sense. This was a constant criti- 
cism of Jesus. The law as the Pharisees under- 
stood it did not go deep enough. Applied exclu- 
sively to the outer manifestations of life, it could 
not influence the thoughts or satisfy the con- 
science. 

In previous lectures we have noticed a very sig- 
nificant phase of ethical development: how the 
growing moral sense of a people will turn round 
upon ancient religious traditions and cut them to 
pieces, or transform them ethically. It does not 
require an extended examination to discover that 
this process was going on within Pharisaism it- 
self. Take the case of Saul of Tarsus. Exter- 
nally his career as a Pharisee appears satisfying. 
Believing himself blameless before the law, he 
does not seem to question his religious status. 
But an examination of some of the autobiograph- 
ical references in his epistles raises a question 
whether, after all, his satisfaction did not mask a 
profound uneasiness, as of a sense of something 
lacking, of an experience inconsistent with his 
ideals. 

It is difficult to say to what precise period we 



166 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

may assign that remarkable analysis of experience 
contained in the 7th chapter of Romans. This 
chapter is a "chamber of horrors and an Iliad 
of woes" and there is much in it that seems to re- 
fer to his pre-Christian experience. As a Chris- 
tian he boasts of the freedom of his spirit; he is 
conscious of a feeling of harmony within himself 
produced by faith in the gospel ; while the chapter 
under review indicates a mighty struggle between 
a law in the members and a law in the mind, quite 
out of harmony with his professions of liberty. 
For my own part, I am convinced that this chap- 
ter refers in some measure at least to his experi- 
ence under the law. If he could look upon the 
law as limited to externals, he might be content; 
but this was precisely what so earnest a nature 
could not do. In spite of his Pharisaic training 
the law became spiritual and inward; it ceased 
to be a mere preceptive influence and became a 
power that searched his very soul. A diagnosti- 
cian is often incapable of suggesting a remedy, 
but he can make his patient profoundly uneasy 
by telling him what is the matter with him. In 
Paul's case the law worked better as a diagnosti- 
cian than as a schoolmaster. We have noticed 
how the growing moral feeling among Greeks and 
Romans tended to widen and deepen the rift in 
the soul, and to produce a feeling of conflict be- 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 167 

tween flesh and spirit. Aristotle expresses it as 
a conflict between reason and passion in these 
words: "It is clear that there is in man another 
principle which is naturally different from reason 
and fights and contends against reason. For just 
as the paralysed parts of the body, when we in- 
tend to move them to the right, are drawn away 
in a contrary direction to the left, so it is with the 
soul ; the impulses of incontinent people run coun- 
ter to reason." '^ 

What speculation was doing for the gentile, the 
law was doing for many Jews as earnest as Saul 
of Tarsus. How accurately he sums up the case 
in the familiar phrase: *'To will is present with 
me, but how to perform that which is good, I find 
not." ^ This is a confession of a need for a virtue- 
making power; a demand for a remedy adequate 
to meet a situation created by the law. It is also 
a confession that power to meet this need is not 
to be found in human nature. And this was prac- 
tically the same conclusion reached by ethical 
thinkers from Plato to Seneca. Speculation de- 
veloped the conviction in the gentile mind, and the 
law created it for the Jew, and both were brought 
to the same level. Pharisaism failed simply be- 
cause it could not meet the growing demands of 

^ "Ethics," Welldon's translation, p. 32. 
«vii:18. 



168 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

the moral sense, and this failure is significant of 
the failure of the quest for safe conduct by means 
of legal obedience. A man might keep the ex- 
ternal demands of the law, and still be far from 
attaining peace. He had to reckon with an inner 
experience which the law could sharpen and in- 
tensify, but in no wise relieve, save as by suggest- 
ing submission to Christ. I do not mean to assert 
that thinking alone would have made Paul a 
Christian ; but I do believe that a profound feeling 
of dissatisfaction with the Pharisaic programme 
made it easier to yield to Christ, when he was con- 
vinced that He had risen from the dead. In his 
epistles he attacks the law in no academic spirit. 
His passionate assertion of the freedom of the 
Christian against the tyranny of tradition is the 
offspring of a conviction that the Pharisaic con- 
ception of the law was not only inadequate, but 
positively harmful. But he gave the law credit 
for performing its divine function; it was an at- 
tendance officer to bring men to Christ. When 
this was accomplished its work was done.^ 

Pharisaism failed in the third place because it 
could not successfully cope with foreign influences. 
This is apparent from the history of the Jew of 
the dispersion. The power of the Pharisee was 
exercised in the synagogue. The Sadducee was 

®See MacGregor's "Christian Freedom/' passim. 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 169 

a man of the temple ; as an ecclesiastical politician 
he had little interest in provincial enterprises. 
The Pharisee, on the contrary, vitally influenced 
the life of the provincial Jew because the bond of 
racial solidarity was the synagogue service. But 
in spite of this the Pharisee found it difficult to 
plant legalism in gentile soil. The Jew of the dis- 
persion emphasised the ethical rather than the le- 
gal aspect of religion. Separated by time and 
distance from the temple services, he was less in- 
terested in ceremonial observances than his Pal- 
estinian brother. Moreover, he was less suscepti- 
ble to Pharisaic exclusiveness and more open to 
cosmopolitan influences. This is indicated by the 
speech of Stephen, a Jew of the dispersion. He 
devoutly believed in the temple and the law as di- 
vine institutions, but clearly saw that they had 
been superseded by Christianity. Under such 
circumstances the notion of ethical monotheism 
as the foundation of spiritual religion became clear 
and explicit. But the enlargement of the moral 
significance of God tended to educate the con- 
science and intensify the struggle between the hu- 
man will and the ethical imperatives of the law; 
and the net result was a sense of inadequacy in the 
old way of salvation. The Jew of the dispersion 
was far more willing to receive Christianity than 
his Palestinian kinsman, not onlv because his mind 



170 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

was open to new influences, but because the new 
religion adequately met the demands of the eth- 
ical nature. 

In these particulars we have an explanation of 
the failure of Pharisaism. By misconceiving the 
law, so far from providing a way of salvation, the 
Pharisee actually made the quest for safe conduct 
more acute, since the law developed the moral 
sense and made man aware of the inaptitude of 
external righteousness. Our Saviour told the dis- 
ciples that unless their righteousness should ex- 
ceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, they could 
not enter the kingdom. Possibly many Jews of the 
dispersion felt the same thing. The growing eth- 
ical feeling of the time made external methods of 
salvation unfit and useless, and created a demand 
for a virtue-making power that could give man an 
undisputed status before the most High God. 
The failure of Pharisaism was the failure of the 
third phase of the quest for safe conduct. 

Our consideration of the background of early 
Christianity has been limited to a study of certain 
persistent forms of spiritual experience. The 
primitive religious impulse is "the effective desire 
to be in right relation to the Power manifesting 
itself in the universe." We have examined three 
historic answers to this imperious need. Some 
sought adjustment through ritual, others through 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 171 

ethical reflections, and others, as in the case of 
the Pharisee, through legal observances; and the 
quests for safe conduct failed because they could 
not provide a virtue-making power; they were 
unable to evolve a moral dynamic of sufficient force 
to meet the requirements of a growing ethical pas- 
sion. Every endeavour to attain peace naturally 
increased the moral urgency of the quest, and in 
the period under review this feeling was para- 
mount. Where in the midst of this welter of re- 
ligions, philosophies, and rituals could man find a 
virtue-making power? The age was too impa- 
tient to listen to argimaent ; it was beginning, too, 
to weary of mere dogma. It most intensely 
craved the appearance of a power manifest in ex- 
perience and working its will in historic forms 
and comprehensible ways. The most pathetic 
figures of the time were men hke Seneca or Mar- 
cus Aurelius, representatives of the ethical quest; 
or men of the Pharisaic type, who held the impos- 
sible hope of a restoration of the ancient national 
exclusiveness. But they were men of the past. 
The more promising figures of the age on the 
other hand were Jews of the dispersion, and God- 
fearing gentiles. They were men of the new age, 
who could hope and aspire and grow. This was 
the harvest which our Saviour could see. It lay 
out there in the gentile world, prepared by cen- 



172 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

turies of struggle and deferred hopes, of inapt 
speculations and unfruitful moral experiences. 

What could Christianity do for that age? 
What could it say of the need for moral power? 
Could it satisfy the passionate desire for safe 
conduct? Was it too a mere theory, or a religion 
of myths and symbols and ritual performances? 
Was it another ethical philosophy, or new legal- 
ism — another link in the chain of bondage — or was 
it a virtue-making power, a story of a Mighty 
Personality that had come into the world, to seek 
and to save? 

This was the inspiriting situation that con- 
fronted the many-sided mind of Paul when he 
looked beyond the narrow confines of Judaism 
to the Grseco-Roman world. And this vision of 
opportunity is the explanation of his confidence 
when he writes to the Roman Christians : "I am 
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth; to the Jew first and also to the 
Greek." ^^ In the first epistle to the Corinthians 
he summons the ancient world to debate the ques- 
tion of safe conduct with him: "Where is the 
wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the dis- 
puter of this world? Hath not God made foolish 
the wisdom of this world, for after that in the 

"i:l6. 



THE LEGAL QUEST AMONG THE JEWS 173 

wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not 
God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preach- 
ing to save them that believe." ^^ For several cen- 
turies God had permitted the old world to think 
about the question of safe conduct, and while the 
moral strenuousness of life had become explicit, 
and ethical passion stimulated, no dynamic to meet 
the need had been devised. The scribe and the phi- 
losopher and the disputer of this world were silent 
in the face of this tremendous demand. But a new 
and entirely different force had come into the 
world. It did not rely on the enticing words of 
man's wisdom, or depend on an ornate ritual, but 
was communicated to man through faith in a his- 
toric Person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
Mighty to save. 
"i:20-21. 



PART TWO : THE 
RELIGION OF POWER 



LECTURE VI 

CHEISTIANITY AS THE RELIGION OF POWEK 



LECTURE VT 

CHRISTIANITY AS THE RELIGION OF POWER 

In passing to the constructive part of the subject 
we must keep in mind the significance of the back- 
ground. The background is important first as 
defining the feehngs of the Graeco-Roman world 
concerning spiritual relations and outlook; and 
secondly, as indicating the sort of rehgion the age 
was prepared to accept. 

The feeling that characterised the period was 
one of distress. The collapse of the old city-state 
had made it impossible any longer to believe in 
the native rehgion; and while the Oriental mystery 
cults were widely diffused, they had little signifi- 
cance at that time for serious-minded intellectuals. 
This class ordinarily sought peace in some form 
of philosophy. Epicureanism had many advo- 
cates, but the prevailing philosophy was Stoicism. 
But while Stoicism proved a healing and con- 
soling influence to many distressed minds, its final 
effect was to further intensify the unrest of those 
who consistently followed it. It sharpened the 
moral sense, clarified the ethical imperatives of 

177 



178 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

life, but made the problem of safe conduct more 
acute. The want of a dynamic seriously limited 
the philosophy in the directions towards which the 
spiritual aspiration of the age was tending. It 
was realised that right principles were not suffi- 
cient; a moral dynamic was sorely needed; above 
all there was a passionate desire for the appear- 
ance of a power in the Ufe of the times that could 
realise the spiritual aspiration and embody the 
ethical ideal which haunted every thoughtful mind. 
Judaism was influential; its conception of ethical 
monotheism powerfully attracted God-fearing 
gentiles; the promise of a Messiah had simplified 
the desire of the age for a demonstration of spir- 
itual power within the domain of history; yet it 
was felt that something was wanting. What after 
all was the advantage of ethical monotheism 
if it only increased the feeling of imperfection, 
and further enlarged the disproportion between 
precept and performance, which tormented seek- 
ers after God? Where, too, was the Messiah? 
Why did He not come to set the age right ? Even 
should He come, would He be able to solve the 
problem of safe conduct, and set man right with 
God? 

These questions of course did not assume the 
form of rational inquiry ; but they represented feel- 
ings and instincts, more or less vague and incho- 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 179 

ate, yet powerful enough to intensify the moral 
distress of the age. 

Furthermore, the feeling of insecurity tended 
to define the sort of religion the age was prepared 
to accept. If it were indifferent to inherited be- 
liefs and weary of fruitless speculation, or even 
critical of the highest manifestation of religion 
current in the empire, it is not unreasonable to sup- 
pose that a rehgious appeal calculated to impress 
the times must proceed upon very diff*erent lines. 

It must be an appeal not in behalf of a sup- 
posedly correct philosophy and dependent on the 
skilful manipulation of interdependent proposi- 
tions, but able to point with absolute confidence 
to historic performances. Such an appeal could 
not make headway with promises alone, but must 
show that its promises were actually being real- 
ised. The problem reduced to its simplest terms 
was how to translate '^gnosis" into ''dunamis"; 
how to turn precept into practice, how to express 
the moral ideal in character. 

The age was rich, too rich in fact in ideas; it 
was not barren of ideals, but it was painfully and 
consciously aware of its lack of power ; and it was 
keenly felt that any solution of the problem of 
safe conduct must turn not on the revelation of a 
perfect moral system, but upon the operation of 
a moral dynamic; upon the discovery of a virtue- 



180 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

making power at work within the sphere of man's 
experience. 

The purpose of the study of the background 
has been to bring out the material fact that the 
age was ready to accept any rehgion that proved 
itself a moral dynamic in the realm of history. 

If we accept this interpretation I think it will 
be an easy task to show the originality of Chris- 
tianity on its Greeco-Roman background. Our 
estimate of the unique significance of the new re- 
ligion will be derived from the writings of the 
Apostle Paul, because he was the man chosen by 
God to interpret the gospel to the gentile world. 
Paul was the one man among the Apostles who 
had a comprehensive knowledge of the intellectual 
and moral temper of the Grseco-Roman peoples. 
His thoughts and aims were in the closest possible 
touch with the age. He knew its peculiar needs; 
he was conscious of its high aspirations; he visu- 
alised its moral degradation and sympathised with 
its futility. He understood its philosophical pre- 
suppositions and rightly estimated its intellectual 
limitations. 

The chief interest of Paul's age was religion. 
But the people as a rule were ignorant and super- 
stitious. To put light in the place of darkness, 
to impart knowledge to the ignorant, above all to 
reveal the dynamic Personality of Christ to his 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 181 

time, was Paul's ruling passion. He proclaimed 
the joy of the light bearer to the Athenians in 
these words: **Whom ye ignorantly worship, 
Him declare I unto you." ^ 

There was something splendidly audacious 
about the Christian programme. Its advocates 
hoped to win a world steeped in philosophy, or en- 
meshed in the sensuous attractions of ritual and 
ceremony, by telling it a simple story. But the 
wisdom of God is evident from the results, for the 
world was ready to listen to a story that could 
correctly define its need and provide an adequate 
remedy. 

What was there in the new religion most likely 
to appeal to the gentile mind? Surely it is not 
to be sought in its superficial aspects, for 
Christianity despised nearly everything that the 
pagan world praised, and praised nearly every- 
thing the pagan world despised. In the begin- 
ning it had to meet the test of ridicule ; its preach- 
ing was foolishness and its gospel a "silly story" ; 
but in the end it conquered the pagan world be- 
cause of its inner worth.^ It came to a people 
tired of epigrams, sick of discussions, and tor- 
mented by a moral idealism they could not hope 
to express in conduct. It offered salvation, both 

^ Acts xvii:23. 

*- Paulsen: "Ethics," p. 112. 



18^ THE RELIGION OF POWER 

for this life and that which was to come, through 
faith in an historic Personality, and eventually 
such preaching made a profound impression. 
Wherever the gospel was proclaimed people were 
converted and God-fearing gentiles pressed into 
the kingdom with joy and understanding. Chris- 
tian communities sprang up in the strategic cen- 
tres of population in Asia Minor and in Europe; 
and a splendid church exercised a glorious minis- 
try in the metropolis. 

At the outset the faith of the Christian com- 
munity was simple and uncritical. The novelty 
of its ideas, the power of its promises, and the joy 
of its experience was sufficient for the time being; 
but as the new experience began to challenge the 
attention of the world, the people asked questions 
about it and compared it with other and more fa- 
miliar ways of salvation. In contrast with the 
mystery cults it was painfully lacking in ritual 
and in sensuous appeal; in comparison with cur- 
rent philosophies it was singularly barren in dia- 
lectic discussions and rhetorical embellishments. 
But people were puzzled by its mobility. Juda- 
ism was rooted and grounded in the synagogue 
worship and racial relationships; but here was a 
religion that ignored differences of race and lo- 
cality, that could move freely about the world, in- 
dependent of tradition or local attachments. It 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 183 

had all the attractive features of the mystery 
cults, such as the open church, the non-secular 
clergy, and it satisfied the social passion of the 
time in its community life. Moreover, it breathed 
lofty hopes of immortality and fellowship with 
the eternal God, and yet so far from depending on 
symbol or myth, or expressing itself in ornate rit- 
ual, it founded its promises on an historic Person- 
ality. It promised to unite man to God in such 
a way as to fully satisfy spiritual aspiration, and 
by faith in Jesus Christ to impart power to the 
realisation of the moral ideal. It promised these 
things, the very things the age passionately 
wanted, but could it accomplish them? 

That was the crucial question, for it raised the 
problem of performance. At the outset it is quite 
likely that many whose faith in the mystery cults 
had been destroyed by the discovery that Cybele, 
Attis or Osiris, so far from being historic per- 
sons, were myths and symbols only, had demanded 
some proof of the historic reality of Jesus Christ. 
Was the splendid object of gentile faith, the glori- 
ous Saviour of the Pauhne gospel, a myth or a 
reality? Had He once lived upon the earth, or 
was He a product of the theological imagination? 
Such questioning was inevitable, and at first it 
was easy to satisfy it by oral testimony. There 
were many aUve at that early stage of the church 



184 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

who had from the first been eye witnesses of the 
majesty of Jesus, and their testimony was ade- 
quate to meet the requirements of the growing 
community. But as time passed, and the churches 
multiplied — especially as the great leaders either 
suffered martyrdom or were cast into prison — the 
desire for a permanent record of the earthly life 
of Jesus led to the writing of the gospels. The 
characteristic demand for a dynamic Personality 
probably influenced Mark and Luke in the choice 
of materials, in order to exhibit the mighty power 
of Christ as the world's Saviour. 

But the problem was growing all the time, and 
as spiritual life matured it demanded intellectual 
stimulus ; sentiments and impulses required a solid 
basis of conviction. The demand of the age for a 
dynamic quality in religion was steadily forcing 
the advocates of Christianity to prove that it was 
a religion of power. The question was assuming 
a concrete form: was Christianity a religion of 
ideals or of performances ? If it was a power, how 
did it function in history? What were the evi- 
dences of its strength? What were the elements 
of its efficiency? 

The new faith was arousing criticism. Jews 
were speaking of the cross as a stumbling block, 
and Greeks were calling the gospel a "silly story." 
Was Christianity after all to prove a disappoint- 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 185 

ment? In the end would it turn out to be as futile 
as a mystery cult, or as ineffective as a philosophic 
theory? 

Paul realised that it was impossible to stifle or 
ignore intellectual inquiry, and he deliberatelji' 
challenged the intelhgence of his age, as he has of 
succeeding ages, by a direct appeal to reason. 
But his appeal was very simple and strikingly 
original. It had nothing of the complexity of 
current speculations. It was made, not in the in- 
terests of a philosophy of religion, but in behalf 
of historic demonstration. His ultimate aim was to 
tell the age what Christianity is, but his immedi- 
ate concern was to show what Christianity can do. 

The age demanded a test of Christianity; and 
while it still clung to the ancient obsession that its 
needs might be met by some philosopliic or ethical 
theory, it was inclined on practical grounds to be 
suspicious of any religious appeal that resembled 
the futile methods with which it was painfully fa- 
miliar. The age still thought of religion from a 
speculative point of view, but it was feeling after 
God because it wanted a dynamic; and this con- 
fusion in the mind of the age suggests two ways 
of testing a religion. 

Mr. Balfour has reminded us of the double as- 
pect of all beliefs.^ On the one hand beliefs have 

^ "Theism and Humanism," pp. 58-59- 



186 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

a position in a cognitive series, and on the other 
hand behefs have a position in a causal series. 
When beliefs are viewed under a cognitive aspect 
we are interested principally in a more or less suc- 
cessful interrelation of a series of interdependent 
propositions, and this method followed to its log- 
ical conclusion results in a speculative view of re- 
ligion. But when beliefs are viewed under a 
causal aspect, our interest is principally in a "tem- 
poral succession of interdependent events." Our 
aim is not to formulate a system, but to discover 
power. We may be unable to attain a perfect 
system of truth; still if we can discover a divine 
power functioning in the events of history and the 
experience of mankind we may attain an historic 
basis for faith. 

As was intimated in the introductory lecture, I 
desire to base my interpretation of Paulinism on 
this latter conception. Paul was tremendously 
interested in a systematic development of Chris- 
tian truth, and for many minds such a systematic 
conception of religion is a prime necessity; still 
it is clear that most of us cannot withhold our as- 
sent to Christianity until we get a complete and 
comprehensive theory of it. We must seek an 
adequate basis for religious faith in a knowledge 
of the functions of Christian power. I believe 
that a systematic view of religious truth is highly 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 187 

desirable, but I am very weU aware that for most 
men it is impossible; and I am confident that a 
perfectly satisfactory basis for faith can be found 
in the causal aspect of Christianity. And I hold 
this view not only because it seems to insure a 
practical and workable basis for faith, but also 
because it was Paul's method of approach to the 
intellectual difficulties of an age, which in so many 
important particulars resembles our own. 

The difference between a cognitive and a causal 
view of beliefs suggests the two ways of testing 
a religion. One is to investigate its ideas, the 
other is to examine its power. One studies its 
principles, the other considers the facts and events 
that make up its history. One asks : What is re- 
ligion? The other: What can religon do? One 
is the test of discussion, the other of performances 
and of fruit. 

Paul's age was interested in both aspects of the 
question, but the moral stress of the time tended 
more and more to concentrate attention on the 
causal aspect. Superficially the age was willing 
to discuss the ideas of the new religion, but fun- 
damentally it was intensely interested in its per- 
formances. 

The test of religion by means of discussion is 
an easy test, since it can be indefinitely prolonged, 
and maintain its credit for a considerable time 



!188 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

without peril to itself. But it is quite another 
matter when one falls back on performances. 
That is the acid test of religion, and it was to this 
acid test that Paul submitted Christianity. 

He seems to say to his age something like this : 
"I could prolong the discussion of Christianity 
indefinitely, and probably afford you, as I once 
did Stoics and Epicureans in Athens, much pleas- 
ure in so doing. But that is not my object. I do 
not come to you with the enticing words of men's 
wisdom, but in the power and the demonstration 
of the Spirit. I bring you no complete theory of 
religion ; I do not wish to gratify your speculative 
ambitions, but I offer you a religion of power, 
based on the hfe, death and resurrection of a Di- 
vine Person; I offer you personal contact with a 
spiritual dynamic which functioning in your ex- 
perience will bring you into vital relation with the 
eternal God." 

This was the crucial question then, and it is the 
crucial question now. Is Christianity a religion 
of power? Most assuredly its originality does not 
lie in the novelty of its ideas. Many of its ideas 
are new, of 'course, but that is beside the mark. 
The ideas of Christianity are means to an end; 
in their doctrinal aspect they are descriptive of 
dynamic functions; they are given to explain the 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 189 

working of a power. Christianity is original sim- 
ply because it is a religion of power. 

The quest for safe conduct had for its goal the 
reconciliation of man with God. It raised the 
question : How can a man get right with the power 
manifest in the universe, and tried to answer it in 
various ways, such as ritual observances, ethical 
speculations and legal obedience of a revealed 
law; and all failed simply because they did not 
have power. They were good diagnosticians, but 
poor healers, and they left the world more miser- 
able than it was before. The want of power gen- 
erally determined the most distinctive desire of 
that period. The absence of vitality in old po- 
litical theories and ancient forms of government 
led to a willingness to entrust the fortunes of the 
state to a strong man. The world in Paul's age 
worshipped power as symbolised in the Roman 
Emperor; and it as keenly looked for power in 
religious experience. Could Christianity set man 
right with God, and keep him faithful amid life's 
increasing perplexities? That was the supreme 
demand made on the new faith, and Paul's answer 
was the proclamation of the religion of power. 

A theory of power might explain the provisional 
influence of Christianity, but it could not sustain 
it. The important point was whether the con- 
tention was in accord with facts. Theoretical 



190 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

cogency and enthusiastic propaganda were not 
sufficient. What people wanted was not a theory 
of power, but a demonstration of power in re- 
ligious history. If Christianity were true, where 
were the evidences of its power on the field of 
human history? 

As has been suggested, this need in the begin- 
ning was met by the gospels. The people were 
assured that the glorious Christ of the Pauline 
preaching, so far from being a myth or symbol, 
was an historic Personality. But as the spiritual 
life matured the question assumed a different 
form: Was the glorious Object of gentile faith 
one and the same with the gracious Figure en- 
shrined in the gospel story? In other words was 
Jesus Christ alive? If so, He was dynamic; it 
would prove that the "Still Strong Man of the 
souFs need" had come, not as a symbolic ideal 
but an actual personality. Religion would not 
base itself on a pious memory of a dead Christ, 
but upon the living Lord of Glory. The death 
of Jesus would no longer appear as a calamity, 
but as one of the links in a causal chain of redemp- 
tion, having its fitting climax in an historic resur- 
rection. Paul connects these two conceptions in 
the epistle to the Romans. He is writing, he says, 
of "Jesus Christ, Our Lord, which was made of 
the seed of David according to the flesh ; but de- 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 191 

clared to be the Son of God with power, according 
to the spirit of 'holiness, by the resurrection from 
the dead." * 

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is, 
according to the Apostle, the fundamental demon- 
stration on the field of history of Christianity as 
the rehgion of power. I do not wish to enter upon 
an extended examination of the evidence for this 
stupendous fact. Apart from the Scriptural evi- 
dence, which seems to me entirely adequate, be- 
lief in the historic resurrection of Jesus is an in- 
evitable inference from the whole course of Apos- 
tolic history. 

It is frequently asserted that the resurrection of 
Jesus is to be understood as a symbol of immortal- 
ity, or of the revival of spiritual life in man. If 
this were true, the resurrection could have no 
possible meaning for historic religion, for symbols 
produce no events. They belong neither to the 
cognitive nor to the causal series of beliefs, but 
are suspended in a mid-region of ineffective senti- 
ments and are of no possible value in the solution 
of the problem. 

A symbolic view of the resurrection is entirely 
contrary to the evidence. The New Testament, 
the only document on which we can depend for 
reliable information on the subject, nowhere de- 

*i:3-4. 



192 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

scribes the resurrection of Jesus as a symbol; on 
the contrary, it constantly describes it as a fact — 
as an actual event in the sphere of history. It 
was as much a fact of history as the birth, life and 
death of the Saviour. If His death were an 
actual event, so was His resurrection. To speak 
of this most momentous event in the history of 
mankind as if it were a symbol of *'the renaissance 
of the spiritual" is to substitute rhetoric for his- 
toric realism. 

The tradition of an actual historic resurrection 
of Jesus is as well attested a fact of Bibhcal 
truth as any we have. Not only have we the 
general consensus of the Apostolic church, sup- 
ported by the amazing vitality of the gospel 
propaganda which professed to derive its power 
from the fact of the resurrection, but we have 
evidence of another kind of great significance. 

On the one hand, if the resurrection of Jesus 
were symbolic only, it is difficult to understand 
why Christianity impressed the Grseco-Roman 
world. The age was familiar with symbolic in- 
terpretations of religion, and increasingly scep- 
tical of myths. In the first and second centuries 
the pagan theologians were doing their level best 
to rid their gods of the stigma of myth, and the 
mystery cults failed in the end partly because they 
had no historic roots. But Christianity steadily 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 193 

advanced in spite of persecution and political op- 
position until it conquered the world, because it 
was the religion of power, authenticated by an 
historic resurrection. 

On the other hand, if the resurrection of Jesus 
were symbolic only, it makes the problem of ac- 
counting for historic Christianity insolvable, ex- 
cept on the hypothesis that Paul himself created it. 
Yet to my way of thinking the strongest argu- 
ment for the historicity of the resurrection apart 
from the dynamic character of early Christianity 
is the religious experience of Paul. He emphatic- 
ally declares his conviction that if there had been 
no resurrection, it would invalidate the Christian 
hope of salvation, make faith vain, falsify the 
Apostolic testimony, and leave the world in its 
sins. Yet his life and ministry were founded on 
this fact, and reinforced at every critical stage 
by his spiritual experience.^ He was a man of 
immense intellectual force, in the prime of his 
career, with an accurate insight into the temper 
of his time, and by race, and training, rooted and 
grounded in the most stubborn as it was the most 
plausible force opposing Christianity, I mean 
Pharisaism. Is it easy then to believe that such a 
man would break with the spiritual associations of 
a lifetime, and become the chief advocate of a 

^I Corinthians, xv:14-19- 



194. THE RELIGION OF POWER 

despised faith, that he would build round a per- 
sonality the exact antithesis of the Pharisaic ideal, 
a religion that professed to be dynamic, when 
all the time he knew its historic pretensions were 
mythical and the central figure of his preaching, 
a creature of his imagination? It is absolutely in- 
conceivable. Paul became a Christian because he 
believed that Jesus was alive. He was convinced 
that the great gulf between the human and the 
divine life had been bridged by the incarnation of 
the Son of God, and the resurrection was the 
historic proof of a spiritual dynamic operating 
within the sphere of human experience. 

This is not only the strongest argument for 
the resurrection, but it is also the all-sufficient 
argument. If the resurrection be a fact of his- 
tory, it explains and authenticates all that precedes 
it and all that follows it. It becomes the proof 
of power in the new religion. It belongs not 
simply to the cognitive series of beliefs, but is 
causal, productive and creative. It explains the 
Apostolic faith in the simple story of the cross; 
it explains the persistence of the gospel testimony 
in face of the world's opposition; it also explains 
Paul's willingness to submit Christianity to the 
acid test of performance. 

The Apostles did not preach a beautiful sym- 
bolism. They were not interested in revamping 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 195 

worn-out philosophical platitudes; still less were 
they indulging in the composition of lachrymose 
epistles of consolation. They were the enthusias- 
tic advocates of a life-giving power, who put 
behind their passionate proclamations the courage 
and sanity of rich and deep conviction, because 
they knew beyond all question that Christ had 
risen from the dead. Christ was the power of God 
unto salvation. In Him dwelt all the fulness 
of the Godhead bodily, and in Him Christians 
were complete. The age demanded proof of the 
reality of the Christian dynamic, and the Apostles 
preached the historic resurrection of Jesus. 

What did the stupendous fact signify? It sig- 
nified that the moral ideal, which had tormented 
ethical thinkers of all ages, and never more than 
in that period, had finally appeared in historic 
form — an actual fact of human experience. For 
two centuries thoughtful men had felt that some- 
thing more than right principles was needed to 
set man right. It was increasingly felt that noth- 
ing short of a personal demonstration would be 
adequate; and many were trying to shape their 
conduct on the model of some ancient philosopher. 
The typical wise man of the Stoic was an impos- 
sible ideal. "The Stoics admitted that he was as 
rare in the real world as the phoenix; Socrates, 
perhaps, and Diogenes had attained; or perhaps 



196 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

not even they." ^ What the world needed was a 
demonstration of the ideal in an historic person- 
ality. This was the significance of the resurrec- 
tion. Jesus Christ was declared to be the Son of 
God with power, according to the spirit of holi- 
ness, by the resurrection of the dead. In Jesus 
the world had a perfect standard of goodness. 
More could be learned of goodness, by consider- 
ing His character and conduct, than from cen- 
turies of ethical speculation. 

But the resurrection did not reveal the moral 
ideal in detachment, having a mere preceptive 
value. If this were all, so far from relieving the 
tension, it would increase it to the breaking point. 
If the relation of Jesus, the perfect ideal of char- 
acter, was that of a model to an artist, if it left the 
question of attainment to the skill of the individ- 
ual, the burden would stiU rest on the human 
spirit, and this was precisely what the age could 
not endure. It was rich in ideals, but poor in 
power; and it wanted a dynamic, not in detach- 
ment but in actual contact with life. It was not 
enough that Jesus should prove His power by 
rising from the dead; the question still remained: 
Could this power function in human experience? 
The resurrection was a glorious fact, but was it 
a gospel for men? The rehgion of a moral ideal 

^Bevan: "Stoics arid Skeptics/* p. 71. 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 197 

is a religion of despair, but a religion of a moral 
ideal working in contact with human need is a 
religion of hope and power. 

This question could not be answered by argu- 
ment ; what was required was historic proof. Men 
wished to be assured not only that Jesus was good, 
but that He could make other men good. Where 
then was the historic evidence of the dynamic 
quality of the resurrection? Paul found it in 
the Christian community. All over the empire, 
both in Asia Minor and in Europe, churches had 
grown up round the gospel message, and had at- 
tained distinction in life and character through 
faith in Jesus. This remarkable transformation 
was directly traceable to the gospel. Wherever it 
was beheved, it worked. It proved its reahty 
by its fruits. In the beginning the gospel preach- 
ing dealt little in argument. The message was 
given simply and concretely, but whoever accepted 
it experienced a spiritual change. For instance, 
Paul asks the Galatians: "This only would I 
learn of you: Received ye the Spirit by the works 
of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" "^ In Ephe- 
sians the Apostle connects the power of the gospel 
with the resurrection: "You hath he quickened, 
who were dead in trespasses and in sins. , . . 
God who is rich in mercy, for his great love where- 

Mii:2. 



198 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

with he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, 
hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath 
raised us up together, and made us to sit together 
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." ^ 

The rise of the Apostolic church is a fact that 
has to be accounted for. Why was it that a peo- 
ple who formerly lived in sin and superstition, 
had suddenly risen above their age and attained 
to morality and spiritual power, to cleanness of 
life and unselfish zeal? The answer is found in 
the creative power of the gospel. It was intended 
to communicate power through faith to the in- 
dividual. 

To one familiar with those times, nothing is 
more impressive than the account given of these 
little Christian communities. Corinth was one of 
the wickedest cities in the ancient world. It was a 
most unlikely place for the realisation of a spirit- 
ual experience, and yet Paul is able to address 
that community as a church or household of God, 
sanctified in the Lord Jesus and called to be 
saints. In their old life they had been fornica- 
tors, thieves, liars and idolaters. "Such were some 
of you," says the Apostle, "but now ye are sanc- 
tified, now are ye justified in the name of the 
Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of God." ^ 

«ii:l, 4-6. 

^I Corinthians, vi:9^11. 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 199 

The presence of these transformed lives in the 
midst of a crooked and perverse generation was 
an undeniable fact; and this is explained by the 
dynamic quality imparted through faith in the 
resurrection of Jesus. Paul prays that the 
Ephesians may knov;^ "what is the exceeding 
greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, 
according to the working of his mighty power, 
which he wrought in Christ when he raised him 
from the dead." This is a glorious fact : the power 
that created the Christian community and func- 
tions in the experience of the individual is the same 
power that raised Jesus from the dead/^ 

Paul's age needed assurance of moral power. 
It craved a demonstration in human experience 
of a transforming ethical dynamic; and Paul and 
his associates pointed to the two outstanding facts : 
the resurrection of Jesus and the creation of the 
Christian community. Both were real events of 
history, and they were proof of the fruitfulness 
of the new religion. The resurrection of Jesus 
proved that behind the gospel message was a 
dynamic life; the Christian community proved 
the fact that the gospel was creative within the 
sphere of human experience; and the supreme 
revelation made by these two historic facts was 
this, that the virtue-making power, which for 

^^ Ephesians i: 19-20. 



200 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

centuries had haunted the minds of ethical think- 
ers, had at last appeared in the historic Person- 
ality of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Mighty 
to save. 

At the outset it appears that the preaching 
of these two essential facts — ^the resurrection of 
Jesus and the creation of the Christian commu- 
nity — was sufficient to stabilise the faith of the 
church. They were the most obvious facts and 
strengthened faith in the dynamic character of the 
gospel in the face of a rising tide of opposition. 

But new problems were developing, occasioned 
by the growth of the church. So long as the 
church was growing extensively the simple appeal 
to essential and obvious facts would be sufficient 
to stabilise faith and inspire zeal; but so soon 
as the church began to grow intensively a new set 
of questions would arise. For example, people 
would wish to know something more in detail 
about the function of Christian power in individ- 
ual experience. Paul clearly anticipates such a 
desire in the &st epistle to the Corinthians. He 
had determined to know nothing among them 
save Jesus and Him crucified, not, however, be- 
cause he had no deeper revelation, but because the 
carnal character of the Corinthian mind made it 
impossible at their stage of development to make 
further disclosures. But Paul does take up the 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 201 

doctrine of the resurrection in that letter, and 
shows its relation to the individual experience. 
He realised that spiritual progress depends in 
part upon purity of heart and in part upon in- 
tellectual development. Granted that the heart 
is pure, a time comes to every man when he is 
obhged to think out the meaning of his experience ; 
and Christianity must be able to meet that need. 
It is clear that a disposition to grow in knowl- 
edge inspired the Roman letter. Paul did not care 
that his converts should remain undeveloped in- 
tellectually. He wished them to become strong 
men in Christ Jesus; he will not always feed 
them with milk, but insist that they partake of 
strong meat. 

Among the manifold tasks undertaken by the 
Apostle, that of thinking out the ultimate mean- 
ing of Christianity was very important ; and when 
occasion justified it, he put his profoundest 
thoughts into letters to various communities. And 
it is not difficult to imagine that his thinking was 
shaped in part by the quest for safe conduct, which 
was a characteristic feature of his age. 

The quest for safe conduct was inspired by an 
imperious need for adjustment with God. Such 
methods as ritual observances, ethical specula- 
tions and legal obedience to a revealed law had 
failed to satisfy the conscience of the time. Men 



202 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

were disposed to ask, so soon as they became fa- 
miliar with the outstanding features of the new re- 
ligion: Can Christianity set man right with God? 
Is it the religion of power, and if so, where are 
the evidences of this fact? And Paul pointed to 
the resurrection of Jesus and the creation of the 
Christian community. 

These facts being obvious, the next question 
would be: How does this power function in in- 
dividual experience ? How does it deal with man's 
past, present and future needs ? How does Chris- 
tianity adjust man to the requirements of con- 
science? How function in the present strife with 
evil? What assurance can be given that Christ 
will bring man to the goal of his hopes? Life 
was difficult at best; Christianity further com- 
plicated it because it invited persecution: assum- 
ing then that it was the religion of power, could it 
give peace in this present world, and assurance of 
final attainment of the next life? 

These were important questions, and they had 
to be answered; for on the understanding of such 
questions would turn the stability and power of in- 
dividual experience. 

Paul answered such questions as these by teach- 
ing the doctrines of Christianity. To use again 
Mr. Balfour's important classification of beliefs,^ ^ 

" Op. Cit., pp. 58-59. 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 203 

we may think of Christian doctrine as belonging 
either to a cognitive or to a causal series. If we 
think of it under a cognitive aspect, our interest 
will chiefly concern itself with a series of interde- 
pendent propositions, and our aim will be a com- 
plete system of religious truth. And this is not 
only a legitimate but a necessary duty of the 
church. The church must have a systematic body 
of teaching if it is to meet the intellectual re- 
quirements of believers. And it goes without 
saying that Paul was a theological genius, and 
that he had a very clear conception of the cognitive 
aspect of beliefs. But this does not seem to have 
been his immediate concern. What the age needed 
was not so much a systematic theology, as an 
explanation of the life and experience created 
by the gospel. And while he did not overlook 
the cognitive aspect of belief, his immediate con- 
cern was with its causal aspect. 

I propose in the next two lectures to view cer- 
tain characteristic doctrines under a causal rather 
than a cognitive aspect. Doctrines are undoubt- 
edly revelations of essential and objective truth; 
but they are something more than this. Doctrines 
are descriptions of function. The function of a 
power is its characteristic mode of operation. The 
Christian life is divinely originated, but its growth 
depends in part upon the cooperation of man 



204 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

with God; and our ability to work intelligently 
with God is conditioned by our knowledge of the 
functions of the power of God. The more we know 
of the habits and characteristic modes of that tre- 
mendous spiritual dynamic working in the indi- 
vidual experience, the greater is the benefit to be 
derived from its activities. 

The characteristic emphasis placed on Chris- 
tianity at the time when the intellectual develop- 
ment of the church made doctrinal teaching neces- 
sary was that it was "the power of God unto sal- 
vation." It was essentially dynamic and creative. 
Behind the Christian community was the experi- 
ence of the individual; and the pressing question 
was : What is the function of the spiritual dynamic 
in individual life? Paul's answer was by teaching 
doctrines; doctrines are descriptions of function; 
they interpret the causal aspect of Christianity. 

The strength of the believer is determined by 
the degree in which he understands the power 
working in his experience. Knowledge of func- 
tion puts behind the sentiments and impulses of 
religion a body of unchangeable conviction. By 
thinking out the ultimate meaning of experience 
in the light of its functional implications, the 
believer comes to know the power of God in his 
thought and life. 

This, in my judgment, is the right way to teach 



CHRISTIANITY AS RELIGION OF POWER 205 

religious doctrines. Few individuals realise a need 
for systematic statements of belief; but they are 
anxious to understand the functional significance 
of religious teaching in relation to the evolution 
of a strong and stable faith; and this was Paul's 
method of approach to the intellectual require- 
ments of an age, which in many features of its 
life and thought so strikingly resembles our own. 



LECTURE VII 

CHEISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWEE 



LECTURE VII 

CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING 1>0WER 

The quest for safe conduct that distinguished the 
centuries immediately preceding the Christian era 
was inspired by the desire to be in right relation 
with God. Underlying the quest were three dif- 
ferent ideals of life. According to the Greek, 
the ideal of life was completeness. Religion was 
important, but there were other things, such as 
philosophy, culture and worldly position, equally 
important. The chief good was a composite of 
material and spiritual advantages, realised in an 
ideal political environment. According to the 
Roman, the good man was the ideal citizen, the in- 
telligent servant of the state. According to the 
Jew, the good man was the just man, who lived 
in harmony with the law of Moses. 

These ideals of life were modified by the course 
of events. The sifting processes of history brought 
them to the same level, for with the collapse of 
the city-state the quest for safe conduct became 
a task for the individual. In the period following 
Alexander's conquests man's religious needs were 

209 



210 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

separated from his political relationships ; and the 
outcome of the quest, whether manifested in a 
ritual, ethical, or legal form, was to intensify the 
need for a moral dynamic. In spite of racial 
differences the ruling passion of Paul's age was 
for moral direction, and the great Apostle met this 
demand with the conception of Christianity as 
the religion of power. The power of the new 
religion was manifest in the resurrection of Jesus 
and the creation of the Christian community. On 
the one hand the moral ideal had appeared in a 
Life, and on the other hand the gospel was effec- 
tive in transforming character. The virtue-mak- 
ing power which the age wanted was operating 
in the domain of history. It was no longer an 
ideal or a theory, but a cause, manifest in a series 
of events. 

Naturally the question would arise : How is this 
power communicated to the individual? At the 
outset the question was not acute, since most peo- 
ple were content with a simple and uncritical 
faith. The pardoning love of Christ was suffi- 
cient to set man right with God; it was enough 
that he could appeal to the fact of his experi- 
ence — ^his changed life — to prove the power of the 
new religion. 

But the question would become urgent so soon 
as experience required interpretation. The proc- 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 211 

lamation of the forgiveness of sins did undoubtedly 
give peace to the believer, but it did not effectively 
change his feelings about the past. The charac- 
teristic feeling of the age was that salvation had 
to be earned. It was the product of human effort. 
For centuries the race had been working at the 
problem, and the quest for safe conduct had been 
a long, laborious and, in the end, a discouraging 
struggle to be in right relation with God. The 
feeling that salvation had to be earned was as 
common among gentiles as among Jews, and the 
struggle had left its mark on the race. It was a 
most difficult thing indeed to attain peace with 
God ; so acute was the feeling at the beginning of 
the Christian era that it tended to obscure the 
originality of the new religion. 

The first converts to Christianity were Jews 
or proselytes; and although they came into the 
new relation with God by means of faith and re- 
pentance, still their confidence in the new religion 
was reinforced by a prior relation to Judaism. It 
was generally felt that the only way to Christ 
lay through the law of Moses. 

But when gentiles began to press into the king- 
dom, particularly when the remarkable growth of 
the church in Antioch of Syria finally convinced 
men of the originality of the new religion, the 
troublesome question concerning terms of admis- 



212 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

sion for gentiles became very acute. Were they 
to be admitted on the simple terms of faith and 
repentance, or must they first become disciples of 
Moses? 

The matter was allowed to remain unsettled, 
until a serious defection among* the Galatian 
churches made its adjustment an imperative neces- 
sity. The council of Jerusalem officially decreed 
that gentiles were to be admitted on the simple 
terms of faith and repentance. But Jewish Chris- 
tians of the stricter sort did not accept this de- 
cision as final, not only because they thought it 
unfair to the old rehgion, but also because they 
could not rid themselves of the inherited feeling 
that man must do something to save himself; and 
the further fact that this notion impressed the 
Galatians shows how deeply rooted the feeling 
was in the gentile mind. It seemed unreasonable 
and impossible to accept the blessings of Chris- 
tianity on terms so simple. 

The age was prepared to admit the inadequacy 
of the old methods of salvation; its present un- 
rest was evidence of that, but it was still disposed 
to insist that a man must do something to save 
himself. Christianity had proclaimed peace with 
God through the forgiveness of sins; this was ac- 
cepted provisionally, but it could not rid man of 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER S13 

the feeling that so simple a programme should be 
supplemented by something else. 

The feeling that the Christian programme was 
inadequate exposed believers to the syncretic ten- 
dency of the times. The age was sceptical of 
simple things, and in love with complexity. The 
more popular religions were composite; they had 
been improved by the addition of desirable ele- 
ments taken from other cults: why then should 
Christianity prove an exception? Greek, Oriental 
and Jewish influences sought admission into the 
Christian consciousness. They were all the more 
dangerous because they were vague and inchoate, 
and in the main friendly. They did not seek to 
displace the new faith; they simply asked that 
they be added to it for the sake of a better Chris- 
tianity. They sought to beguile the believer from 
the simplicity that was in Christ. 

Paul anticipates such questions as these in his 
various letters. With the Corinthians he insists 
that Christianity is not a philosophy but the re- 
ligion of power. With the Colossians he main- 
tains the great truth that Christ is the fulness 
of God, and that Christians are complete in Him. 
Christianity^ was sufficient for all human needs, 
and was not obliged to seek assistance from out- 
side sources. 

In spite of this, the feeling that man must do 



214 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

something to save himself made it difficult to 
accept a religion of grace. Men would reason: 
How can so great an issue as the soul's salvation 
stand upon faith and repentance? Salvation had 
come by the hearing of the gospel ; faith had com- 
municated pardoning love and peace with God; 
moreover it had imparted a dynamic character 
to experience, but the old inherited feeling would 
not down : Can any religion save without strenu- 
ous human effort ? 

This question, so characteristic of the times, 
made a further interpretation of Christianity an 
immediate necessity. It did not in the beginning 
call for a systematic statement of Christian truth, 
but it did require an explanation of the func- 
tional significance of the Christian dynamic in hu- 
man experience. 

A function is a mode of action through which 
a power fulfils its purpose. The demand for 
further light on Christian experience was legiti- 
mate and Paul met it by teaching doctrines. Doc- 
trines are descriptions of function; they explain 
how Christian power operates in individual ex- 
perience. 

In the Roman letter Paul declares that the 
gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salva- 
tion, because therein is revealed a righteousness of 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 215 

God/ Righteousness is a very important word 
and is used in two senses: as a description either 
of the character of God, or of a status given to 
man by God. In the first sense it belongs to a 
cognitive series; in the second sense to a causal 
series. 

The gospel is power because it reveals a status 
which God gives to man through the redemptive 
work of Christ. Righteousness does not refer to 
man's conduct in this sense, but to his position in 
the sight of the Most High God. It is a graciously 
bestowed privilege whereby man is enabled to hold 
himself free from the claims of his past. This 
function of gospel power is called justification. 

Justification is God's righting act. His adjust- 
ing power. It is the divine way of settling once 
and for all the question raised by the quest for 
safe conduct. That quest was for a right rela- 
tion with God, and the gospel bestows this relation 
through justifying faith. The gospel reveals the 
fact that God has given man a status before Him 
which past experience cannot invalidate. Behind 
pardoning love is justifying grace. Justification 
is the function of the Christian dynamic which 
deals chiefly with man's past. Prof. William 
James has reminded us that there are three kinds 
of functions: productive, releasing, and transmis- 

M:i6-17. 



216 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

sive.^ We may apply these differences to the 
conception of justification. Justification is the 
productive function of the atoning work of Christ, 
by which we mean that the status given the sinner 
before God is caused by the atonement. Faith 
is the releasing function of justification, by which 
we mean that faith releases the power of justi- 
fication in individual experience. Peace is the 
transmissive function of faith, by which we mean 
that peace with God is communicated through 
faith in the righting power of God. 

The conception of justification is here viewed, 
not as one of a series of interdependent proposi- 
tions, but as a link in a chain of redemptive causes. 
This beyond question was Paul's method of ap- 
proach to the problems raised by the growing ex- 
perience of the church. The believer wished to 
know the implications of experience, chiefly, how 
did the Christian dynamic function in relation to 
the past? Could it suspend the inherited feeling 
that man must do something to save himself? Had 
the believer set out on a new quest, or had he 
arrived at the goal of his hopes? Pardoning love 
had undoubtedly given a kind of peace, but was it 
real or fictitious? Was it based on fiat or historic 
performance? If the resurrection of Jesus proved 
the dynamic character of the new religion, what 

2 "Human Immortality/* pp. 13-14. 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 217 

was its specific evidence of justifying power? 
Paul's answer to this important question was that 
behind the pardoning love of Christ which the 
gospel proclaimed stood the justifying grace of 
God, and behind justifying grace stood the great 
historic act of the atonement. 

A clear conception of what is meant by the 
atonement of Christ is necessary if we are to un- 
derstand what is meant by justification. Now 
there are theories and theories. Some theories 
exist for the sake of philosophic system ; and other 
theories because they are needed to understand 
the function of power. A theory of the atonement 
necessary to comprehend justification is of this 
latter kind. Just as a theory of electricity is re- 
quired to understand the functional habits of elec- 
tricity, so is a theory of the atoning work of 
Christ required for a knowledge of its functional 
significance. Justification is the function of 
Christ's sacrificial death which has to do with one 
of the vital problems of human history: how can 
a man attain right status before God? Justifica- 
tion is God's righting act and is squarely based 
on the historic death of the Saviour; a theory of 
the atonement is therefore a prime necessity, if 
we are to comprehend justification. 

There are but two logical views of the atone- 
ment : one is known as the moral influence theory, 



218 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

the other as the theory of vicarious substitution. 

The moral influence theory originated in the 
fertile brain of Abelard in the twelfth century; 
and although it has been changed from time to 
time to suit the popular mood, it is substantially 
the same now as then. "It views the death of 
Christ rather under the category of revelation 
than of atonement, as part of His prophetical 
rather than His priestly office. It is the great 
manifestation of the divine love, the pledge to 
men of God's eternal readiness to forgive the re- 
turning sinner. The divine justice needs no other 
satisfaction than the repentance and reformation 
of the sinner." ^ 

There is some truth in this view. The preaching 
of God's love has a powerful influence on sinful 
natures, and is calculated to arouse feelings of re- 
gret and penitence. The simple story of the cross 
has mightily moved the ages ; and if human nature 
raised no deeper questions, that is if man could 
hold his religion apart from his thoughts, and view 
his past and present performances apart from the 
criticism of conscience, it is possible he might con- 
tent himself with such a view. 

But the experience of the Apostolic church 
shows that a man cannot be content with an unin- 
terpreted faith. We are obliged to reckon with 

3 Stearns: "Present Day Theology," p. 388. 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 219 

a growing intelligence. We have already noticed 
how the moral sense will turn round upon inherited 
traditions and make demands which they are not 
always prepared to grant; and the need which 
led to the formulation of a doctrine of the atone- 
ment in the Apostolic church was aroused by the 
gospel offer. The gospel offered peace with God 
on terms of faith and repentance; in fact at the 
outset it resembled in many ways a moral influ- 
ence. But so soon as the new experience came 
under the scrutiny of a growing intelligence, the 
question was at once asked: Is this proclamation 
of peace and pardon a reality, or a fiction? Is it 
preceptive only, or dynamic ? 

Growing Christians were compelled to ask the 
meaning of Christ's death, and it is an interesting 
thing to observe that a moral influence theory of 
the atonement never seems to have occurred to 
them. It was impossible for those who had been 
seeking salvation by the various strenuous ways 
revealed in the quest for safe conduct, and who 
had so keenly felt the need of a moral dynamic, to 
base their faith in adjustment with God on an 
influence, however beautiful or appealing. 

Influence is not power. An influence may sug- 
gest an ideal or indicate ways and means, but it 
cannot create. Let ns admit that the gospel did 
assure the sinner of God's pardon, if he would re- 



220 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

turn, the main question is still unanswered: How 
are you going to get him to return? Where was 
the power that could move him towards the divine 
ideal? The old struggles for peace had convinced 
man of his moral immobility. He had ideals and 
theories abundant, but was deficient in power, and 
what is more important, he knew it. "To will is 
present with me, but how to perform that which 
is good, I find not. . . . O wretched man that I 
am! who shall deliver me from this dead body?" 
Such thoughts are not confined to Scripture; they 
may be found in other forms in the writings of 
Lucretius, Cicero, Virgil, Seneca or Marcus Au- 
relius. Is it conceivable that men who acutely 
felt the need of a virtue-making power, and who 
passionately craved the advent of a strong Per- 
sonality to adjust the age to its spiritual rela- 
tionships, could have been content with a theory 
of that adjustment, which while it presented an 
ideal of such purity as to strike terror into sensi- 
tive minds, still resolved its saving power into a 
vague and sentimental influence? 

It is a safe thing to say that Paul's age would 
not have been interested in a moral influence the- 
ory of the atonement, first because it could throw 
no light whatever on its present experience, and 
secondly because it had no doctrine of justification 
by faith. What the thoughtful man wanted was 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 221 

not assurance of God's love: he had that; but he 
wished to go behind the love and understand its 
sanctions and historic roots. He wanted to know 
what position the love of Christ gave him in the 
face of the holiness of God ? What was his status 
before the Great White Throne ? A theory which 
invited him to be content with surface impressions 
largely emotional in character could have no mean- 
ing for him. The view cannot function in expe- 
rience at its deepest level, because it has no justi- 
fying power. It interests but does not grip. It 
stirs sentiments but fails to move the conscience. 
The moral influence theory of the atonement is 
popular because it allows considerable room for 
pride, and does not offend man's natural impulses. 
Superficially it attracts, but when it confronts the 
realism of deep experience it loses aU meaning, 
because it appeals to the sesthetic rather than to 
the moral nature. It presents Jesus in a very 
amiable light, but "had Jesus been such an amiable 
preacher of human world-wisdom," says Paulsen, 
"His contemporaries would most likely not have 
considered it necessary to nail Him to a cross ; the 
amiable, proper and charming people who live and 
let live, who understand the art of combining re- 
ligion with culture, who incline towards easy-going 
congeniality, and enjoy the pleasures of the social 
cup, have never been regarded as dangerous and 



222 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

nailed to crosses. If the Christianity of early 
times had been what the interpreters of later ages 
have now and then made it, the deadly enmity 
which it aroused in the world would be absolutely 
inconceivable." ^ 

The theory is popular because it has no sting 
in it. It repeats the Socratic error that knowl- 
edge is power, that sin is a mistake, and that 
no man "errs of his own free will." But Paul's 
age knew better. It was acutely aware of per- 
versity: "I see the good and approve it," said 
Ovid, "but deliberately do the wrong." Men could 
not believe in a love, however good, unless it was 
based on historic performances ; they could not ac- 
cept peace with God on a declaration of forgive- 
ness, because they felt the force of the inherited 
tendency to do something, and were willing to re- 
ceive salvation by faith alone, only when assured 
that behind pardoning love was justifying grace, 
and behind justifying grace was the great historic 
deed of the atonement. 

And there is nothing amiable about the New 
Testament doctrine of the atonement. It frankly 
sets forth the death of Christ as the only possible 
way of reconciliation with God. It leaves no 
room for pride, has little patience with half-and- 
half measures, and revamps no lost illusions. It 

* "Ethics/' p. 96. 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 223 

was a reproach in Apostolic times and it is a re- 
proach now; but what does this matter if it be 
true? What did it matter to men of Paul's age 
what view the gospel took of human nature, if 
it gave an undisputed status before God? This 
tremendous doctrine put the Jew and gentile on 
the same level. All had sinned and come short of 
the glory of God, but nevertheless the gospel 
opened the way for a real communion with the liv- 
ing God. It was the "new and living way" to the 
throne of the heavenly grace. 

The New Testament doctrine of the atonement 
is set forth in these words: "All have sinned and 
come short of the glory of God, being justified 
freely by his grace through redemption that is in 
Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a 
propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare 
his righteousness for the remission of sins that are 
past." ^ "It is impossible," says Sanday, "to get 
rid from this passage of the double idea of sacri- 
fice, and of a sacrifice which is propitiatory. . . . 
And further, when we ask, who is propitiated? 
the answer can only be God. Nor is it possible to 
separate this propitiation from the death of the 
Son." « 



^ Romans iii :2S-25. 

® Quoted by Stevens : "New Testament Theology/' p. 
413, note. 



2M THE RELIGION OF POWER 

The truth is, according to New Testament 
teaching, let it be plainly and frankly said, that 
Christ took the place of the sinner on the cross, 
died in his stead, and His death resulted in a 
propitiation of God. Without a real propitia- 
tion there can be no such thing as justification. 
"It plainly lies with the Deity," says Mr. West- 
cott, "to dictate the terms and conditions on which 
He will admit man within His covenant." '^ 

The death of Christ is conceived as a propitia- 
tion of God; as having an effect upon the Divine 
relation to man. How shall this change be un- 
derstood? Obviously most of the difficulties with 
this doctrine come from a loose definition of the 
idea of reconcihation. There are ways of illus- 
trating the doctrine as inconsistent with the moral 
sense as they are with Scripture. But I think we 
can speak of it in a simple way, without doing 
violence to anything essential. Plainly there is a 
deep mystery in the atoning work of Christ; how 
the reconciling work was ultimately accomplished 
we cannot say, since it belongs to the mystery of 
the Divine nature ; but the New Testament makes 
some things clear. 

The word "reconciliation" is used in two senses 
in Scripture: either as a change of nature, or as 
a change of relation. The atonement of Christ 

^ "St. Paul and Justification," p. 38. 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 225 

did not change God's nature, but it did change 
His relation to man as a sinner. 

The atonement did not change God's attitude 
towards man. God does not love us because Christ 
died for us; but Christ died for us because God 
loved us. The atonement is the perfect revelation 
of divine love: "God commendeth his love toward 
us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died 
for us." « 

The atonement did not change God's attitude 
towards sin. If the law of Moses condemned sin, 
the death of Christ so far from setting it aside, 
rather increased the divine condemnation. It was 
the perfection of condemnation: "God sending 
His own Son in the hkeness of sinful flesh, and 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." ^ 

But the atonement did change God's relation 
to the sinner. It enabled Him to be just, and 
yet to become the justifier of the unjust. "For he 
hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; 
that we might be made the righteousness of God 
in him." ^^ As such the atonement is God's con- 
sistent method of removing the barrier between 
man and Himself; consistent at once with God's 

® Romans v:8. 

® Romans viii :3. 

*°II Corinthians v:21. 



226 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

holy nature, and man's fundamental moral neces- 
sities. 

But the significance of the atonement is not 
limited to a proclamation of Divine love; its spe- 
cific object is to provide for justification. Grace 
provides a righting power; it puts behind the 
offer of pardoning love an assured status before 
God. From this point of view justification is the 
productive function of the atonement ; it describes 
the legitimate operation of atoning power within 
the sphere of human experience. Pardon is not 
suspended in an ineffective region of sentiment, 
but rooted and grounded in an historic deed. 
Justification is God's righting act, the final ad- 
justment of the human spirit to the demands of 
its eternal relationships; it is God's act of recon- 
ciliation, effective unto the saving of souls because 
it derives its power from the atoning work of 
His Son. 

But how is assurance of status to be gained? 
How is the righting power of God communicated 
to man? Paul's answer is by faith. Faith is the 
releasing function of justification. But some one 
may say: Grant the truth of your theory, is it 
necessary for a believer to have a theory of the 
atonement, in order to have peace with G^od? 
May he not be content with a simple and un- 
critical faith in Jesus Christ? The answer is yes 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 227 

and no. It is perfectly true that many do get 
along without theories of religious truth; their 
faith appears to require little or no theology; still 
this does not indicate the superiority of this type 
of Christian. A faith without doctrines is a col- 
ourless faith, and may at any time become unsta- 
ble. Even if it be capable of sustaining itself in 
the face of opposition, it has no power for propa- 
gating itself, simply because it has no ideas. 
Ideas are the hooks of faith which stick into other 
minds and take hold there often in spite of op- 
position. If one is willing to remain a babe 
in Christ, and depend on a favourable environ- 
ment for successful resistance of the friction of 
this world, he may get along without theoretical 
explanations of religion. But it ought to be said 
that objections to religious doctrine often rise 
from mental indolence or from a superficial ex- 
perience. And if one is to be a mature Christian, 
sustaining himself in the face of opposition, and 
propagating his faith in his own generation, he 
must think out the functional implications of his 
experience; he must go down to the roots and 
grapple with religion's inspiring problems, and 
the reason for this is a very practical one. 

Any scheme of religion a thoughtful man ac- 
cepts must reckon with the conscience. Now the 
conscience knows nothing of mercy, and makes 



228 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

short work of proclamations based on pardon 
alone. When conscience sleeps it is content with 
a moral influence, but when conscience awakes 
it will demand a dynamic atoning deed. To for- 
give a sin does not remove its wrongfulness. The 
question of right or wrong is in charge of the con- 
science. Now the target of pardoning love is the 
heart, the emotional nature; but the target of 
justification is the conscience, the moral nature. 

Paul's age demanded a religion that could deal 
with conscience. It would listen to preaching 
that began with pardoning love, but it would 
permanently yield to a religion only when it could 
satisfy the impUcations of the moral nature. A 
conviction of sin is necessary to an adequate com- 
prehension of Divine love; and it was a convic- 
tion of the sinfulness of sin that made Paul's age 
go behind pardoning love to the deed of justifica- 
tion. The gentile felt the need of deliverance 
from the power of evil. The feeling could not 
suggest a remedy, but it was powerful enough to 
inspire a desire for a deliverer, a Saviour. In 
the meantime, however, it left man without ex- 
cuse. It filled him with fear and dread and unrest. 
He saw punishments in his calamities and dreaded 
what might happen after death. The age was 
conscious of the need of a tremendous righting 
power which could adjust it to its eternal rela- 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 229 

tionships. And if this feeling of need was com- 
mon to gentiles it was equally so with the Jew. 
For the Jew had the law of God, and in spite of 
his professed security, he was keenly aware of the 
inadequacy of his way of life. Paul tells us how 
he felt about it in the seventh chapter of Romans. 
The law had revealed the sinfulness of sin both in 
its positive and negative aspects. "All had sinned 
and come short of the glory of God." And if a 
Jew felt thus before his law how much more 
keenly would he feel it in the presence of the 
White Purity which had come into the world and 
condemned the ideal religious figure of the age in 
the words: "Except your righteousness shall ex- 
ceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Phari- 
sees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom 
of heaven." ^^ The law confronted man with a 
debt he could not pay, it threatened him with a 
penalty he could not bear, and set him a task 
he could not essay* No assurance of Divine for- 
giveness could rid him of the feeling that he must 
do something to save himself, except on the as- 
sumption that behind that assurance was an his- 
toric righting power. The age was sick of precep- 
tive moralities, and wanted power, and the only 
thing that could square it with conscience was a 
real justification, grounded on historic perform- 

" Matthew v:20. 



2S0 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

ance. It ought to be easy to comprehend this. 

But it may be asked: Can a man have peace 
with God upon the assurance of pardoning love 
alone? The answer is provisionally yes, perma- 
nently no. Suppose you borrow money from a 
man and he deposits your note in a bank for col- 
lection. The note falls due and you cannot pay 
it, so you go to the creditor and confess the debt, 
admit that in spite of honest efforts you are un- 
able to meet it, and throw yourself on his mercy. 
He forgives the debt and assures you of his friend- 
ship. Undoubtedly this relieves your mind for 
the time being, but how about the bank? Your 
plea will not be vaUd there so long as it holds your 
note. The mere fact of the pardon of the debt 
will not prevent a renewal of uneasiness, so you 
return to the friendly creditor, and he goes with 
you to the bank, takes up the note and destroys 
it in your presence. Your status with the bank is 
at once altered. Your peace is secured because 
the visible obligation has been destroyed. You 
are forever free from the debt. Why? Because 
the destruction of the note was a deed, while the 
pardon of the debt was a word only. The word 
of pardon was not effective until the obligation 
had been cancelled. 

Now the conscience is a bank, and it holds man's 
notes for past transgressions. These notes are 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 231 

sins. They are debts contracted in the past, but 
they hold over man's head the obligation to reckon 
with them in the future. Mere pardon wiU not 
finally bestow peace of mind. What man needs 
is the destruction of the obligation. He wants a 
power to go with him before the conscience, and 
make an end of the whole sad business. It was 
the function of the Mosaic law to establish the fact 
of debt, it is the business of the conscience to 
enforce its collection, but it is the function of 
justifying grace to cancel all obligations and give 
the debtor a status before God which the con- 
science cannot dispute. Justification not only re- 
moves the barrier between man and God, but also 
between man and his conscience. Bunyan in the 
allegory of the Holy War has beautifully illus- 
trated this truth, when Emmanuel on the recon- 
quest of Mansoul deprives conscience of his posi- 
tion as recorder, and makes him an under-secre- 
tary of love. Justifying grace transforms con- 
science into a servant, and sets the believer free. 

The Biblical word which describes this experi- 
ence is "peace." Peace is the transmissive func- 
tion of faith. It is the precise assurance of a 
status before God, based on the historic deed of 
the cross, which conscience cannot dispute. It is 
not easy to break with the past. As poisonous 
exhalations rise from a marsh and endanger 



232 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

health, so do thoughts of past transgressions 
threaten the health of the soul. It is very diffi- 
cult to throw off the inherited tendency that one 
must do something to be saved. Persistence of 
this feeling means bondage. It enslaves the mind 
and wastes the energy of the will in fruitless 
works. The ancient world had learned the bitter 
lesson; the more passionately it sought peace, the 
more acutely conscious was it of the futility of 
human effort. It was not in man's power to save 
himself, but he could not abandon the quest. Paul 
put the question for the old world in the words: 
"O wretched man that I am: who shall deliver 
me from this dead body?" He saw and approved 
the good, but power to perform that which was 
right he found not. It was not in ritual, it was 
not in ethical speculations, and it was not in 
legal obedience of a revealed law. The service 
of the law was the most burdensome of all be- 
cause it found sin in a state of suspended anima- 
tion, and left it acutely alive as an evil power 
within the soul. But the glorious gospel pro- 
claimed deliverance. Christ was the end of the law 
for righteousness unto every one that believed. 
In Christ the law was abolished and a new right- 
eousness was revealed, a God given status which 
none could dispute. The quest of the ages ended 
at the foot of the Cross, because the atonement 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 233 

made justification a reality, and faith in Christ 
released the power of God in the individual soul 
and the issue was the enjoyment of peace that 
passed all understanding. 

This was a wonderful revelation, because it 
meant the end of dead works and fruitless quests 
to serve the living God in the freedom of the 
spirit. To comprehend justification by faith will 
determine whether our religious experience is to 
be founded on a stable peace or on a new kind 
of bondage. I remember an incident of my child- 
hood. An exposition was held in our town, and I 
went to it in a rather unconventional fashion. I 
entered it not by the door, but over the fence in 
a surreptitious manner. But although it was filled 
with many diverting things I could not enjoy 
them, because I was continually haunted by fear 
of detection. I was on the inside, but I had no 
right to be there; and my pleasure was turned into 
bondage. The joy that I had anticipated was 
turned into trembling unto me. Some time after 
I went again, but this time in company with my 
father. We came by way of the door and entered 
by ticket, and I gave myself unreservedly to the 
enjoyment of the exposition. Many people enter 
the treasure house of God without being sure of 
their rights there. They are always looking back, 
they are in fear of detection; the conscience like 



234 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

a policeman walks in the midst of the treasures 
of grace, and they are afraid for their souls. Their 
religion is a new kind of bondage. The old shadow 
of Puritanism still falls athwart our modern lives. 
Our religion is sour, unattractive, and funereal. 
The reason for this is found in an undisciplined 
conscience, and the cure for it is a fresh apprecia- 
tion of justifying grace. Justifying grace gives 
us peace with God and peace with ourselves. 
Peace becomes our man of war, and guards the 
heart against all unhealthy tendencies and all 
unspiritual experiences. Justification makes con- 
science the servant of love, and frees the spirit to 
serve the living God. 

It is impossible to overestimate the eagerness 
with which earnest spirits received the Pauline 
conception of justifying faith. The peace of God, 
like a great river, made glad the city of Mansoul, 
and by cleansing it of the poisonous influences of 
the past, made it a temple of the Holy Ghost. 
Wherever the doctrine was preached men seemed 
to hear again the great voice of Jesus calling: 
*'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." Breaking with 
an evil past and assured of the love and protec- 
tion of God, they were enabled to work out their 
salvation and make their calling and election sure. 
The atoning work of Christ enabled the believer 



CHRISTIANITY AS A JUSTIFYING POWER 235 

to pass through the portals of pardoning love 
into the Throne Room of the Almighty, confident 
that none could question his right to be there. 

In this manner, Paul answered the first of the 
questions raised by the growing experience of the 
church. But the new freedom developed ques- 
tions concerning moral progress. Some were in- 
clined to believe that faith in Christ relieved them 
of moral effort; while others were disposed to 
doubt their salvation so long as sin remained in 
their mortal bodies. Such questions made a 
further elaboration of doctrine essential, and 
opened the way for a consideration of the func- 
tion of the Christian dynamic in the growing life 
of the church. 



LECTURE VIII 

CHBISTIANITY AS A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 



LECTURE VIII 

CHRISTIANITY AS A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 

It was the distinctive glory of Christianity that 
it could say to the men of the first century: "You 
are neither under the law of Moses, nor the law 
of conscience, but through faith have been brought 
under the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus." 
Justifying faith suspended the age-long struggle 
for salvation by personal effort, and this was what 
none of the schemes hitherto devised had been able 
to do. A religion of grace was taking the place 
of religions of works, whose promises were founded 
on historic performances. The immediate out- 
come of this experience was a new sense of free- 
dom. 

But how was the new freedom to be understood ? 
Did justifying faith make salvation possible apart 
from a holy life? If salvation were a free gift, 
was it necessary to strive after perfection? Chris- 
tianity was a law-free religion, and to many it 
appeared to offer peace with God apart from an 
ethical experience. 

Such a misconception was easy for the Jew, 

239 



mo THE RELIGION OF POWER 

because his religious sanctions were derived from 
the law of Moses. The only religion that a Jew 
could understand was a law-bound religion, and 
it was difficult to resist the conviction that Chris- 
tianity was immoral simply because it set aside the 
law. It seemed to remove all legitimate restraints 
from human nature and to encourage lawlessness 
and self-indulgence. 

Such a misconception was easy for the gentile, 
because he was familiar with non-moral religions. 
Religions without moral sanctions were common 
in the ancient world ; the mystery cults then exer- 
cising a wide influence in the empire were of this 
character. They promised blessedness on compli- 
ance with ritual requirements. To submit to a 
ceremonial purification admitted the devotee to 
spiritual privileges without regard to his moral 
character. Moreover a light-minded man will al- 
ways take religion on the easiest terms and seek 
a maximum of benefit with a minimum expendi- 
ture of effort. The mystery religions attracted 
many because they offered salvation on the easy 
terms of ritual conformity. But these cults suffered 
somewhat in popular estimation because of their 
non-historical character. Cybele, Attis, and Isis 
turned out to be mythical figures without dynamic 
authority. It was different with Christianity. 
This religion was historic and productive of re- 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 241 

suits in human experience through the Person- 
ahty of Jesus. The age-long quest for a righting 
power had successfully ended at the foot of the 
cross. God's pardoning love was founded on an 
historic deed of sacrifice which gave man an un- 
disputed status before God. It was easy for un- 
disciplined minds to suppose that faith in this 
great sacrifice was sufficient. Having suspended 
the old struggle for peace, it did not seem neces- 
sary to take up a new quest for holiness. That 
such a view was current is apparent from the 
sixth chapter of Romans: "Shall we continue in 
sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How 
shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer 
therein?" 

But such a notion of Christian experience would 
not satisfy a serious mind. How, for instance, 
would it strike a God-fearing gentile? This man 
had completely broken with native superstitions, 
and he was not interested in mystery cults be- 
cause they could not satisfy his craving for moral 
experience. He had turned to Jewish monothe- 
ism because it was the highest and best form of re- 
ligion that he knew. Still Judaism did not fully 
satisfy him because it had no dynamic; and he 
eagerly embraced Christianity, not only because 
it offered peace with God, but imparted power to 
hfe and conduct. It would not be a pleasant 



242 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

reflection to suppose that the new religion would 
after all prove as disappointing as a mystery 
cult. If faith in Christ became an excuse for 
lawlessness, how could it be the best religion? 
Judaism, in spite of its limitations, was far better. 
The truth is, a serious man, be he Jew or gentile, 
could not accept Christianity on these terms. No 
religion can permanently hold the faith and loyalty 
of a serious nature that does not satisfy the need 
for ethical experience. 

The demand, therefore, for a moral experience 
made a further elaboration of Christian doctrine 
essential. For no sooner was the believer satis- 
fied as to his status with God, than he wished to 
know how faith met the problems of the present 
life. For the believer had a new experience, un- 
questionably the product of gospel power. Faith 
not only justified, but created desires and stimu- 
lated passions for righteousness. Still the new 
experience required interpretation. Was it real 
or fictitious? Granted that faith justified, did 
it also renew the human disposition? Assuming 
that the death of the Saviour had settled man's 
past obligations, what had Christianity to say for 
the present life? In other words could the new 
religion set the enfranchised spirit to work in 
the service of a moral ideal with a reasonable hope 
of success? 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER MS 

It was such a need that prompted Paul to un- 
dertake a further development of doctrine. First 
he lays down the characteristic Pauline proposition 
that faith in Christ means union with Christ. The 
Christian life was a unity; for the sake of clear- 
ness it might be viewed in various relations, but 
in essence it was one. Justification dealt with 
man's past; it removed the obligation to punish- 
ment through the atoning merits of the Saviour, 
but justifying faith led to a closer union of the be- 
liever with the Lord. The faith which justified 
also united the Christian with the renewing and 
transforming energies of the Spirit. Forgiveness 
was the gateway to a new experience. Even as 
Christ died and rose again, so believers in Christ 
die unto the old nature, and rise to newness of 
life. The Christian was a new creature, because 
he was a new creation. 

In the last lecture we described faith as the 
releasing function of justification, but it is some- 
thing more than this. Faith unites the soul to 
Christ. To believe on Christ is to be in Christ. 
Paul is leading up to the conception of spirit- 
ual growth, but he finds it necessary first to speak 
of the connecting link between forgiveness and 
growth. That link he calls adoption. 

Christ's redemptive work is comprehensively de- 
scribed as reconciliation. But reconciliation means 



244 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

a change of status or a change of nature. Spirit- 
ual growth is a manifestation of a transformed 
nature ; but adoption has to do with reconcihation 
as status. Justification gives the sinner not only 
the status of pardon, but also of acquittal of all 
past transgressions through the merits of the aton- 
ing Saviour. But the notion of status may be en- 
larged so as to include the redeemed sinner in the 
family of God. This enlarged status is called 
adoption. 

Adoption is that expression of Divine grace 
which gives the pardoned sinner the status of a 
son in the Father's family. This conception had 
a very definite meaning to the early Christian. 
"The Pauline analogy was founded on one of the 
most cherished of Roman institutions, fraught 
with important and widely reaching results both 
to the adopted person and the father who had re- 
ceived him into his family. A bond was formed 
which even death could not sever. The adopter 
could not, even if he would, evade the new rela- 
tionship, established by the ceremony of adoption 
in the presence of the appointed witnesses. The 
adopted person obtained the right to the family 
inheritance, and so close was the relationship con- 
ceived to be, that the tie of blood was no stronger. 
. . . The object of the Apostle was to awaken 
men to the full realisation of their glorious privi- 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER M5 

leges, to enable them to comprehend the certainty, 
the closeness and permanence of that bond which 
united God to them as their Father, and them to 
God as His sons; to assure his readers that the 
covenant which God makes with every believer 
in Christ Jesus is not a capricious undertaking, 
liable to be broken at any moment, but a pledge to 
be observed by Him in all its fulness, because 
grounded on the eternal Truth and Justice." ^ 

Justification narrowly considered seemed to 
leave the present experience detached from the 
life of God; but adoption showed how man was 
brought into the Divine family and given the 
status of a son. And this met one of the deep 
longings of the age. For centuries the world 
had been trying to realise the Fatherhood of God, 
and the notion had attained a definite meaning for 
Stoic philosophy. The Stoic, to use Mr. Bevan's 
phrase, believed in a "Friend behind phenomena." 
Three centuries before Christ Cleanthes had con- 
fessed the Stoic belief: 

"We are thy children^ we alone, of all 
On earth's broad ways that wander to and fro. 
Bearing thine image wheresoe'er we go." ^ 

Unquestionably the pagan world was dimly 
aware of the truth, but it was obliged to feel after 

^ Muntz : "Rome, St. Paul and the Early Church," pp. 
86-87. 

^ Hymn to Zeus, Adam's translation. 



246 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

God in the darkness of superstition. It was not 
able to realise it in any concrete way, because 
there was no actual contact of God's grace with 
human need. 

But Christianity was the religion of revelation; 
it was the unfolding of the mystery of grace. 
Christ's sacrificial death had revealed the Father- 
hood of God, and the intense longing for this 
filial relation to God had been confirmed by the 
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was the witness 
to the adopting act. He bears witness with our 
spirits that we are the children of God. Adoption 
was a manifestation of divine love: "Behold what 
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, 
that we should be called the sons of God." ^ In 
the Christian revelation, the great spirit of the 
universe, the wished-for "Friend behind phe- 
nomena" became the God and Father of our Lord 
and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

Justification and adoption are links in a chain 
of redemptive causes which deal with man's status 
before God: one acquits him of the guilt of sin, 
the other admits him into the Divine family. 

But the idea of status does not exhaust the 
gift of love. There is also a vital change of the 
human disposition. The believer realised that a 
new power was functioning in life. He had been 

^ I John iii:l. 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 247 

quickened with Christ and was alive to new rela- 
tionships. The works of the flesh were being elimi- 
nated and new desires were forming in the soul. 

How was this experience to be understood? 
What share had man in its development? Paul 
answered this question with the doctrine of sanc- 
tification. Sanctification describes the construc- 
tive function of the Christian dynamic. 

Back of growth is the mysterious experience of 
regeneration. But Paul does not carefully formu- 
late this doctrine, because it was not needed. He 
was dealing with a people who were tremendously 
alive, and who were not so anxious to understand 
how they had been born, as to know how to meet 
the problems of the expanding life. This enabled 
the Apostle to pass from a consideration of re- 
conciliation as a change of status, to reconcilia- 
tion as a change of nature. 

Growth creates perplexities for serious minds 
because it usually sharpens the sense of opposition. 
Moral effort sooner or later reveals a schism within 
the soul. There is a law in the mind and a law in 
the members; there is conflict between the flesh 
and the spirit. 

Plato has described the conflict between flesh and 
spirit in the myth of the charioteer and the winged 
horses.* One horse is noble, pure and amenable 

*See Dickinson: "Greek View of Life," pp. 146-149. 



248 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

to right reason; the other is earthly, sensual and 
perverse, and the struggle to control creatures, 
so diverse in disposition, makes up life's moral 
experience. The ancients could discover no ade- 
quate method of reconciling these opposing forces. 
With all his faith in the power of intelligence, 
Aristotle is obliged to confess that there is a con- 
cupiscent part of the soul that is not subject to 
reason. The thinking and especially the experi- 
ence of later ages made this point clear ; and Paul's 
period was keenly aware of human perversity, and 
equally lacking in power. How, then, would the 
experience of growth impress a serious nature? 
Assuming that the grace of God provided for 
justification, did it also promise power for the 
realisation of a holy life? Could Divine power 
control and finally overcome the concupiscent part 
of the soul? That question had to be answered, 
since no religion can stand on justification alone; 
it must also give power to lead a holy life. Could 
Christianity do this? 

For so soon as the believer was assured of his 
status, he became aware of a new problem. 
Contact with Christ sharpened the radical differ- 
ence between good and evil, and made man aware 
of the tremendous power of the flesh, to resist and 
even to defeat the holy aspirations of the newly 
enfranchised spirit. 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 249 

Paul has a great deal to say of the warfare of 
flesh and spirit. By flesh he does not mean the 
material body, but that system of disorderly and 
self-regarding desires which opposes the reign of 
spirituality. The carnal mind is enmity against 
God ; it cannot be subject to the will of God. The 
natural man is under the dominion of flesh, while 
the spiritual man is under the dominion of spirit. 
If the spirit is to triumph, the flesh must be put 
to death. There must be a transformation of the 
inner disposition. Although the Christian was 
renewed in the inner hf e, the problem of growth 
had to be faced. He must put on Christ in the 
moral habit and disposition of the mind, and make 
no provision for the flesh to fulfil its lawless de- 
sires. 

This was a splendid programme, but could it be 
carried out? The plain fact confronted the be- 
liever: contact with Christ intensified the reality 
of the struggle with evil. The flesh lusted against 
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and no 
compromise was possible. We have had occasion 
in previous lectures to note the fact that the older 
Stoics made no allowance for human imperfec- 
tion. They held that a man was either wholly 
good or wholly bad. Their favorite illustration, 
as Mr. Bevan has pointed out, was "that a man a 
foot below the water is in a drowning condition 



250 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

just as much as a man a mile down." ^ They ad- 
mitted that a perfect man was a rarity, but they 
would make no concessions to imperfection, for 
fear of impairing the moral ideal. Although later 
Stoics tempered this hard doctrine, the feeling 
still remained to torment earnest souls. It power- 
fully affected growing Christians. How was it 
possible to believe in the soundness of one's salva- 
tion so long as sin remained in the mortal body? 
The Orphics among the Greeks had settled the 
question by saying that the body was the tomb of 
the soul ; that matter was essentially evil and that 
the spirit could be delivered only by death. But 
the Christian could not hold such a view. Evil 
dwelt in the thoughts and disposition of the mind. 
The higher a man aimed the more conscious was 
he of the presence of sin in experience, not be- 
cause his sins increased in bulk, but because moral 
effort increased the sensitiveness of the soul. 
Mere status, then, however glorious, could not 
meet a need like this. How could a Christian be- 
lieve his sins were forgiven, so long as evil in- 
fluenced his conduct? 

This feeling made men doubt the adequacy of 
Christianity, and exposed them to the temptations 
current in that syncretic age. Many, in those 
days, could not be satisfied with a simple religion ; 

^"Stoics and Skeptics," p. 71. 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 251 

they were engaged in various improvements and 
additions to current faiths, and cults borrowed 
from each other with impunity. The satisfaction 
of the devotee appeared to depend on the num- 
ber and variety of elements taken from other re- 
ligions. It was natural that Christians should 
feel the force of this tendency. They would ask: 
Is not something lacking in the gospel which may 
be supplied from without? It w^as such a feeling 
that tempted the Galatians to mix Moses with 
Christ. The tendency was also present in the 
church at Colossse. Some were inclined to adopt 
the Orphic notion of the evil of matter; others 
were interested in the worship of "elemental 
spirits," and still others were disposed to practise 
a false asceticism, borrowed for the most part 
from the Jews ; and all were inclined to believe that 
by the addition of one thing or another they 
would get a better Christianity. 

The tendency to supplement Christ's redemp- 
tive work from outside sources is a very stubborn 
one. It is occasioned usually by the difficulty of 
believing in a religion of grace rather than of 
works. It is very difficult to follow the Christian 
programme, when every advance sharpens the con- 
flict between flesh and spirit, without being 
tempted to do something of a supplementary char- 
acter to sustain the meagre resources of faith. 



252 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

This feeling, so deeply rooted in human nature, 
accounts for the power of old Jewish practices; it 
explains the attraction of asceticism in the early 
church; it gave Roman Catholicism great influ- 
ence in the Middle Ages, and is responsible in part 
at least for the confusion in the mind of some theo- 
logians, concerning the relation of justification to 
sanctification. This latter is a vicious mistake, for 
it practically makes one's faith in justifying grace 
dependent on one's opinion of moral progress, and 
is utterly contrary to the Biblical view, as it is 
destructive of peace. 

Paul's answer to the whole contention was that 
since the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ, 
Christians were complete in Him. It was impos- 
sible on the one hand to accept the antinomian con- 
tention that salvation by faith alone inevitably 
led to lawlessness, since faith in Christ meant 
union with the life and power of Christ. It was 
equally impossible on the other hand to ignore 
the plain fact that the new life was a life of strife. 
It deepened the notion of sin and sharpened the 
conflict between flesh and spirit, but the Chris- 
tian was assured of resources in Christ adequate 
to meet all problems growing out of the new Hf e 
of holiness. It was folly then to go outside of 
Christ, since His grace was sufficient for all prac- 
tical needs. 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 253 

According to Paul, justification must be com- 
plete before sanctification can begin. They were 
closely related but essentially distinct functions 
of grace. Justification was an act, sanctification 
was a work. In justification God was the sole 
agent; in sanctification God and man worked to- 
gether. As Prof. Stearns puts it, "Justification 
is the setting of the broken bone ; it brings the soul 
into its true relation to God; it has sanctification 
for its object. Sanctification is the healing, a 
process wholly different and wholly distinct." ^ 

It is important to notice that while perfection 
of character is the ultimate goal of sanctification, 
it is not its immediate object. It is doubtful 
whether in this life a man can form a true estimate 
of perfection. There is danger in attempting to 
do so, for fear of suspending the struggle without 
which perfection is impossible. The immediate 
object of sanctification is not perfection, but rea- 
sonable progress in the divine life. Its aim is not 
the suspension of struggle, but the avoidance of 
useless effort. The old effort after perfection was 
to found salvation on the basis of human merit, 
or attainment. This was the significance of the 
quest for safe conduct. But this abortive effort 
had been set aside by the coming of Christ. Faith 
in the atoning mercy of the Saviour, by the grace 

« "Present Day Theology/' p. 447. 



^54 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

of justification delivered the soul from past fears 
and bondage, to serve the living God in the free- 
dom of the spirit. But this new liberty was not 
deliverance from struggle, but only from the fruit- 
less and unavailing effort to lay a basis of salva- 
tion in human merits. 

Paul vigorously describes the new experience. 
Sometimes it is a race, at other times a boxing 
match; still again it is called a battle, and in one 
place it is a wrestling match with formidable pow- 
ers of darkness. It was always strenuous. The 
growing Christian could never say that he had at- 
tained, or was already perfect. The best he could 
say was that he was pressing on. In this warfare 
our weapons were not carnal. Power to succeed 
in this realm must come from spiritual relation- 
ships. The believer was encouraged by the further 
revelation of sanctifying power issuing from the 
free gift of salvation. The grace that bestowed 
the status of a son was also given to ensure the ex- 
perience of a son by the progressive transforma- 
tion of man's nature. The active agent in this 
new experience is the Holy Spirit of God; He 
is the leader of the regenerate nature in its warfare 
on the flesh. As many as are led by the Spirit of 
God, they are the sons of God. 

The growing Christian would be intensely in- 
terested in the teaching about the Holy Spirit, 



\ 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 255 

and Paul naturally devotes a great deal of at- 
tention to the subject. The Spirit is the witness 
with our spirits that we are children of God. He 
is the earnest of the purchased possession; the in- 
terpreter of the unexpressed longings of the grow- 
ing soul; the seal of the Father's love and the 
guarantee of, a completed salvation. He regen- 
erates, renews, quickens, guides and informs the 
soul in its progress towards the divine ideal. Man's 
co-operation is needed, but power issues from the 
divine energy imparted through faith. The active 
agent charged with the responsible task of de- 
veloping the divine experience in the life of man 
is the "Holy" Spirit, the Spirit of righteousness 
and of love. He is also the "Spirit of Christ," 
manifesting the same attitude and disposition 
towards man as was experienced in Christ. As 
such He was no stranger or outsider, but an active 
participant in the great work of salvation. 

We cannot overestimate the tremendous sig- 
nificance of this revelation for the first Christian 
century. Belief in the activity of spirits was prac- 
tically universal in those days, but it was not al- 
ways an encouraging belief. There were many 
reasons for the notion. For one thing it was 
very old, and had been inherited by the Romans 
from Greece and the Orient. It was especially 
influential in the first century because of the grow- 



^56 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

ing belief even among pagans in the moral sig- 
nificance of God. When the conscience sleeps 
it is easy to bring the gods down to the ordinary 
level of human life and make them in man's like- 
ness; but when conscience awakes it turns round 
on inherited beliefs and modifies them in the in- 
terest of a purer conception of Deity. As the idea 
of God is moralised and spirituahsed, He becomes 
remote and inaccessible to man. The feeling of the 
aloofness of God was common in the first century. 
It was almost universally believed that any com- 
munication with Deity depended on mediators of 
one sort or another. This led to the notion of 
intermediate gods or elemental spirits. "Great 
was the multitude of this heavenly host, inter- 
preters between God and man; ^thrice ten thou- 
sand are they upon the fruitful earth, immortal, 
ministers of Zeus,' healers of the sick, revealers 
of what is dark, aiding the craftsman, companions 
of the wayfarer." '^ Plutarch said that it could 
be proved "on the testimony of wise and ancient 
witnesses that there were natures, as it were on the 
frontiers of the gods and men, that admit mortal 
passions and inevitable changes, whom we may 
rightly, after the custom of our fathers, consider 
to be daemons, and so calling them, worship 

'^ Dill : "Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius/* 
pp. 429-430. 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 257 

them." ^ And Plutarch was stating the general 
belief of the time. These deemons "serve two pur- 
poses in religious philosophy. They safeguard 
the Absolute and the higher gods from contact 
with matter, and they relieve the Author of Good 
from responsibility for evil. At the same time 
they supply the means of that relation to the di- 
vine which is essential for man's higher life." ^ 

Opinion differed as to the nature of these in- 
termediate spirits. Some were of the same essence 
as God Himself ; others had mixed natures, partly 
divine and partly human. Plutarch said "that 
they were godlike in power and intelligence, but 
human in liabihty to the passions engendered by 
the flesh." '^ 

It was inevitable that such views should de- 
velop into the notion of a tyranny of malignant 
spirits, "tainted with the evil of the lower world." 
In order to reconcile the old myths with prevailing 
ethical conceptions of deity, the doctrine of the 
familiar spirit was devised. The gods were be- 
lieved to be good, but they were often as in the 
case of Zeus misrepresented by their familiar 
spirits. Such notions led, of course, to a spread of 

® Quoted by Glover: "Conflict of Religions in the Early 
Roman Empire/' pp. 96—97. 
^Glover: Op. Cit., p. 97. 
^° Quoted by Dill: Op. Cit., p. 4S1. 



258 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

superstition, to a dread of gods and daemons of 
the most degrading influence. The favour of good 
daemons could be gained by observing the ritual re- 
quirements of the mystery religions, but there was 
no sure way of obtaining the good will of evil 
daemons. This gross superstition roused the noble 
scorn of Lucretius in the preceding century, but 
the dread of elemental spirits was even more com- 
mon in Paul's time. The universe was filled with 
capricious beings ; even the Most High God might 
have a famihar spirit, capable of misrepresenting 
Him. 

It is easy to imagine the eagerness of a people, 
long familiar with the dread of elemental spirits, 
in receiving the Pauline revelation of the Holy 
Spirit. God Himself was present in the believer's 
life. The Historic Christ had brought man into 
living contact with the Lord of Glory, and the 
Great Spirit of the Universe had come down from 
His inaccessible heights to dwell in sympathetic 
relation with the children of men. 
y^ The doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the active 
agent in the growth of the Christian met the sec- 
ond pressing need of the times. The first need 
Paul had met with the doctrine of justifying faith. 
The second need was met with the assurance of 
reasonable progress in the divine life, in spite of 
indwelling sin and the prolonged struggle with 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 259 

the flesh. But a third and final question would 
be raised: What of the future? Is Christianity 
capable of bringing man to the goal of his hopes ? 
Was there a stage beyond sanctification? God 
had begun a good work in man, did He intend to 
complete it? 

This question was raised in part by the growth 
of the Christian, and in part also by the increas- 
ing complications of life in this world. 

The outstanding fact of the new experience was 
the fact of dependence. The Christian knew that 
his experience was an effect. He was what he 
was by the grace of God. He was just as de- 
pendent on grace for progress in holiness as he 
had been in the first instance upon pardoning love. 
He could not boast of his spiritual attainment, 
because the goal of perfection receded as he ap- 
proached it. It was a flying goal, and the best 
he could say was that he was pressing on. But 
sooner or later he had to face the question of at- 
tainment. Progress could not be indefinitely pro- 
longed: would he then reach the goal? He was 
sure if he did, it would be by the grace of God. 
This made him intensely anxious to know whether 
there was a Divine plan comprehensive enough to 
meet all requirements back of his faith and life. 
He wanted a larger concept of religion; one that 
would embrace the several aspects of experience. 



260 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

Paul had been revealing the several links in the 
chain of redemptive causes. But the behever 
wanted to see the whole chain, its beginning and 
end. He saw justification, adoption and sancti- 
fication; was there not a further link of glorifica- 
tion still to be revealed? He asked this question 
because his experience had reached the stage where 
unity in the several processes of his life was essen- 
tial to abiding peace. 

An additional influence in this direction was the 
increasing complications of life in this world. 
Christians were beginning to attract the unfa- 
vourable attention of society. The profession 
was becoming dangerous not only to leaders but 
also to followers. The disciples were realising the 
increasing cost of living with Christ. The early 
Christians universally believed that Christ would 
return during their lifetime, and their hopes at 
the outset were fixed on this blessed expectation. 
But as time passed it appeared as if they were 
to be disappointed. Some were growing lax, others 
had fallen away, and some were growing scep- 
tical and saying: "Where is the promise of his 
coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things 
continue as they were from the beginning of the 
creation." ^^ Above all the menace of Nero's evil 
reign was becoming portentous, and the future 

"II Peter iii;4. 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 261 

held the promise of persecution and death for 
many. 

It is interesting to note that the Roman Chris- 
tians did not suggest that Christ save them from 
such a future. They were wilhng to endure hard- 
ship and even suffer death for Christ's sake. Un- 
douhtedly many who read Paul's great epistle 
suffered under Nero. But they knew the weak- 
ness of the flesh, and had no confidence in them- 
selves. How would they behave in the flames? 
What would be their attitude when they saw the 
lions in the arena? How could they stand against 
the opposition of the Roman world? They dare 
not trust themselves, but could they trust God? 
That depended on His plan for their life. Would 
His grace hold them true as they passed through 
the fires, and in spite of unworthiness bring them 
to the goal of their hopes? 

That was an urgent question. Stoics like Seneca 
tried to answer it with a conception of Provi- 
dence very like fatalism, but it was a hard old 
creed, and few could abide it. But the God and 
Father of Jesus Christ was not the rigid deity 
of the Stoic philosophy. He had loved them in 
the past and He loved them in the present, but 
would He love them unto the end? Was it not 
natural then to ask for further explanations of 
the Divine purpose that would enable them to be 



262 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

more than conquerors in the coming persecution? 

This question was urgent because of the tragedy 
of the Jewish nation. If God had a plan, had it 
not been revealed in the history of the Jew? But 
the law had failed to save the Jew, and his nation 
had been rejected. Did this imply the failure of 
God's plan, or was there something more to be 
said? 

It was this need, issuing from the mature Chris- 
tian experience, and the complications of life that 
prompted Paul to formulate the doctrine of the 
Divine purpose. The very word "predestination" 
bristles with difficulties, and it is unlikely that one 
could answer all objections made to it. We must 
frankly admit the presence of a deep mystery in 
the ways of God with men. A philosophy of 
Providence is impossible since the finite mind can 
never fully comprehend the Infinite. But it is 
evident to any one familiar with the relation of 
Christian teaching to the life of those times, that 
the doctrine of election was taught for a very 
practical purpose. It was not meant for babes 
in Christ, but for strong men. It would have 
been an enigma to the Corinthians, but it was as 
plain as a pike staff to the Romans, simply be- 
cause they had reached a stage where light on the 
Divine purpose was essential to further progress. 

The doctrine of election, so far from being a 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 263 

perplexing mystery, is a plain and necessary ele- 
ment in spiritual education. It is a doctrine for 
the maturer stages of faith, but if I am right in 
accounting for the conditions which made the doc- 
trine essential, I think it can be shown to have 
great utility for a growing intelligence, for it pre- 
pares the believer for successfully overcoming the 
temptations which issue from the deeper phases of 
Christian experience. 

The doctrine of election is the revelation of 
the plan behind the believer's life. It is the prin- 
ciple that co-ordinates the plan of salvation. It 
is the final cause of redemption. In this book, 
I have consistently maintained the causal signifi- 
cance of Christianity ; I have asked you to consider 
doctrine in part at least as descriptive of function. 
If this be true, we may regard election as the ex- 
planation of the purpose that gives meaning and 
cohesion to the Christian dynamic which functions 
through faith in the interests of a complete salva- 
tion. 

Paul develops the discussion along several 
lines. First he shows that the law and gospel 
are not two different plans of salvation, but two 
phases of one and the same plan. So far from 
failing to fulfil its Divine mission, the law was a 
complete success. It had accurately diagnosed 
the world's spiritual malady, and by revealing the 



264 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

positive and negative aspects of sin, had established 
a need for redemption. Furthermore, through 
its types and symbols, it had efficiently served 
as an attendance officer to bring the world to 
Christ. Christ was the end of the law for right- 
eousness, to every one that believed. Paul knew 
from his own experience that the law was efficient. 
It had not failed ; what it had done was to estab- 
lish the fact that the race could be saved on no 
other terms than those of free grace. 

The law was given to a chosen nation ; that was 
an advantage; but the covenant which God made 
with the Jew was not based on the law but on the 
agreement with Abraham. The Abrahamic cove- 
nant was based on faith rather than works. Israel 
was elect unto certain privileges, but they did not 
confer the blessing of a personal election. That 
depended on other conditions entirely. The na- 
tion's failure did not imply the failure of God's 
plan ; on the contrary, it proved, as Prof. Stevens 
truly observes, that there was "an election within 
the election." ^^ 

This more intimate phase of election was indi- 
cated by the calling of the gentiles. It unfolded 
the mystery of God, hitherto a Divine secret, but 
now made manifest in the universality of the gos- 
pel offer ; but within this general call, there was an 

^2 "The Theology of the New Testament," p. S81. 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 265 

effectual calling. Mature Christians knew some- 
thing of this, for, says Paul, "We know that all 
things work together for good to them that love 
God ; to them who are the called according to His 
purpose." ^^ It was impossible to believe that God 
would begin such an experience as they enjoyed, 
and then allow it to fail in the face of the very 
complications that it raised. 

From an assured position in experience Paul 
proceeds to develop the doctrine of the Divine 
purpose. Christians are predestinated to be con- 
formed to the likeness of Christ. The plan behind 
the life is indicated in the successive links of a 
causal chain: whom He called, He justified, whom 
He justified. He sanctified, and whom He sanc- 
tified He will also glorify.^* 

What more can we want than this? No doubt 
there is still much to be said from the point of 
view of the theologian, the seeker for a complete 
system; but for the growing Christian whose aim 
is to understand in some measure the implications 
of his experience, nothing further than this is 
needed, since this is about all Paul told the Ro- 
mans about it. 

But some one will say: If you assert the effi- 
ciency of the Divine Will in all the processes of 

"Romans viii:28. 
^* Romans viii :30. 



266 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

salvation, do you not relieve the believer of moral 
effort? The answer is plainly no, simply because 
the only practical evidence of a Divine purpose in 
individual life is reasonable progress towards holi- 
ness. But this progress need not be consciously 
continuous. As st matter of fact, many do lose it 
temporarily; they seem to fall from grace, but if 
God begins a work of grace in man's soul, He will 
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. If a 
child disobeys his father and falls down the steps, 
he does not fall out of the house ; because his body 
is bruised, he does not cease to be his father's 
child. And if it be objected. How about falhng 
out of the window? my answer is that there are no 
windows in this house ; it opens only on the eternal 
glories of that great upper world where God waits 
the home coming of His children. 

The mystery of the Divine purpose is the mys- 
tery of a love so wise and comprehensive as to 
meet all the requirements of a growing experience, 
and to give positive assurance that in spite of the 
complications of this present evil world the be- 
liever shall arrive at the goal of his hopes. Justi- 
fying faith is the title deed to salvation, and elec- 
tion is the abstract of that title, which traces our 
right to it straight back to the source of all good. 

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" 



CHRISTIANITY A CONSTRUCTIVE POWER 267 

writes the great Apostle, as he sees in vision those 
earnest Roman faces. He knew the strain that 
would shortly come on their faith; he knew the 
mighty temptations to yield in the face of persecu- . 
tion; he knew how the arch fear would grip those 
brave hearts when they saw the cords and the 
stakes, the lions and the arena. These people 
wanted assurance that they would not fail; they 
passionately wished to endure without flinching 
the last struggle with the world; and he knew 
moreover that they were intelligent enough to un- 
derstand his meaning : so he did not hesitate to tell 
them that behind their experience, working 
through all the stages of the new life, was the 
great purpose of God; and in words of immortal 
beauty he gathers up the possibilities of the situa- 
tion and afiirms a truth which reasonable faith 
will confirm, that through all the phases of our 
earthly pilgrimage there is being realised an un- 
changeable plan, a plan grounded in love and sus- 
tained by a power adequate to fulfil its promises 
and complete its undertakings. 

The Christian life is rooted and grounded in 
the Divine Energy. When God comes into a 
man's Hfe, He comes to stay. That life begins, 
grows and ends in God; and behind its hopes and 
its fears, its longings and desires, stands the his- 



268 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

toric Personality of Jesus Christ, who lived and 
died and rose again that He might deliver us from 
this present evil world, and present us faultless in 
the Throne Room of the Eternal God. 



CONCLUSION 



LECTURE IX 

THE FINALITY OF CHBISTIANITY 



LECTURE IX 

THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 

It is time to sum up our results. The study of the 
background has shown the urgency of the rehgious 
problem in the time when Christianity began its 
westward movement ; it has also indicated the kind 
of religion the age was prepared to accept. 

The desire for a right relation with God was 
the distinctive need of the first Cliristian century; 
and while the quest for safe conduct had sug- 
gested a moral ideal, it had been unable to furnish 
power for its realisation. The moral passion of 
the age was running far in advance of its con- 
scious capacities, and it was this that gave the 
Apostles their peculiar opportunity, for Chris- 
tianity was the religion of power. Its power was 
manifested in the resurrection of Jesus and the 
creation of the Christian community; and when 
the intelligence of the first Christians made a ra- 
tional interpretation of the power necessary, Paul 
met the need by teaching doctrines. Doctrines are 
descriptive of function; they show that God has 
come into human history with a special redemp- 

271 



272 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

tive purpose in view. Not only did Christianity 
provide an answer to the original question of safe 
conduct in its great doctrine of justifying faith, 
but it also furnished assurance of reasonable prog- 
ress in holiness, and through the great conception 
of electing love promised to bring the behever 
to the goal of his hopes. The net result of the 
Christian propaganda was to establish the new 
religion on an historical basis in contact with the 
growing intellectual and spiritual requirements of 
the age. 

Undoubtedly Christianity had a very practical 
significance for those early centuries. How great 
it was may be inferred from Fowler's brilliant 
study of Roman religious experience. Describing 
the originality of the new religion, when compared 
with competitive forces working in its early en- 
vironment, he says: "The love of Christ is the 
entirely new power that has come into the world; 
not merely as a new type of morality, but as 'a 
divine influence transfiguring human nature in a 
universal love.' The passion of St. Paul's appeal 
lies in the consecration of every detail of it by ref- 
erence to the life and death of his Master, and the 
great contrast is for him not as with the Stoics, 
between the universal law of nature and those who 
rebel against it; not as with Lucretius, between 
the blind victims of ^'religio" and the indefatigable 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 273 

student of the rerum natura; not, as in the JEneid^ 
between the man who bows to the decrees of fate, 
destiny, God, or whatever we choose to call it, 
and the wilful rebel, victim of his own passions; 
not, as in the Roman state and family, between 
the man who performs religious duties, and the 
man who wilfully neglects them — between pius and 
impius; but between the universal law of love, 
focussed and concentrated in the love of Christ, 
and the sleep, the darkness, and the death of a 
world that will not recognise it." ^ 

The contrast is not relative, but absolute. It 
does not lie in the selection of one among several 
equally available methods of salvation; but in a 
comparison of a series of efforts whose futility was 
clearly realised, and a dynamic, functioning in 
history, and actually capable of transforming life 
into the image of the Divine Master. 

Admitting the truth of this contention, the ques- 
tion may be asked: What has this to do with the 
modern world? Can we base our faith on the 
historic Christ, or shall we expect a higher con- 
ception to develop? In other words, is Christian- 
ity final, or do we look for another religion? 

This is an important question, and its answer 
in part will depend on one's attitude towards re- 

* "The Religious Experience of the Roman People," 
p. 467. 



274 THE RELIGION OE POWER 

ligious experience. A man's attitude towards the 
claims of Jesus Christ will have an important 
bearing on the interpretation of the Christian tra- 
dition. There is an incommunicable element in 
religious experience that determines one's view of 
religious truth. The personal equation will often 
take a leading part in historical interpretations. 

Granting this, however, the question as to the 
finality of Christianity has a meaning for the in- 
telligence. It can be thought about, investigated, 
and certain features of the problem will very likely 
prove decisive. I believe that if one is disposed to 
be a Christian, one may turn to the problem as 
it lies in the field of history and reach a satis- 
factory conclusion on the main point ; namely, that 
Christianity in its historic significance proves it- 
self to be the final religion, and that we need look 
for no higher, since none other is needed. 

The truth of this proposition will become evi- 
dent if, after indicating what man's fundamental 
religious needs are and showing that the success 
of Christianity in the early centuries was due to 
the fact that it adequately met those needs, it can 
be proved that the modern man has not changed 
in respect of his religious necessities, that he is 
in no important aspect of experience different 
from the men of past ages. If man's religious 
needs are the same to-day as they were when 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 275 

Christianity began its westward movement, and if 
Christianity met the needs of the man of the first 
century, there is no reason to suppose that it can- 
not meet the needs of the man of the twentieth 
century. 

Our first inquiry then is to determine what man's 
fundamental religious needs are. Why is man a 
religious being? Why is it, that whether we view 
him in a primitive aspect, or in a highly civilised 
state, there are inevitable resemblances of spirit- 
ual desires and aspirations? 

This question may be answered in two ways; 
either by an analysis of the religious consciousness, 
or by an interpretation of the religious conscious- 
ness as it manifests itself on the field of history. 
This latter is the better way, and the value of our 
study of the various phases of the quest for safe 
conduct lies in the fact that the quest indicates 
what man's spiritual requirements are. When 
man's need of God is so urgent as to compel him 
to seek right relations with Him, we may easily 
discover the permanent elements of his religious 
consciousness. The quest for safe conduct indi- 
cates that these elements are four: First, a sense 
of dependence on a higher power; second, a feel- 
ing of not being in right relation to this higher 
power; third, a desire to overcome this feeling 
by means of sacrifices and religious rites; and 



276 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

fourth, a feeling that nothing short of a human 
life in God can adequately satisfy man's desire 
for right relation, which tempts him to make God 
in his own image. 

First there is present in religious experience 
the sense of dependence on a higher power. It 
does not matter whether the power is thought of 
as a person, or impersonal force; whether it be 
conceived under a polytheistic or monotheistic 
form; the essential point is that the sense of de- 
pendence is back of every religious aspiration. It 
was the sense of dependence that led primitive 
man to make the gods in a human likeness, in 
order that he might be at home in the world. It 
was the sense of dependence that prompted the 
primitive religious endeavour. 

But religious effort develops moral experience, 
and its ultimate effect is an increase of moral sen- 
sibility that introduces a disturbing element into 
the religious consciousness: a sense of not being 
in right relation to the power manifest in nature. 
This is not a sense of sin, or even of wrong doing, 
but rather of dislocation and alienation. The sense 
of dependence draws man towards God, but the 
sense of alienation drives man from Him. It fills 
him with a feeling of unrest and insecurity in the 
presence of the mysterious Spirit who inhabits the 
universe. He is no longer at home in the world, 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 277 

and he becomes aware of a need of getting through 
it with credit. He becomes a seeker for safe con- 
duct. The original desire of primitive man for 
God becomes clear and explicit; in other words 
it seeks to find an effective way of getting into 
right relation with God, and this develops a third 
element in the religious consciousness. 

As the moral sense turns round upon inherited 
traditions it makes the problem of safe conduct 
a personal one; it develops a need for effective 
methods of propitiating the great Spirit of the 
universe, and this feeling expresses itself in 
sacrifices, rituals, efforts to make atonement — in 
short, in historical manifestations of various kinds. 
From this primitive passion for an effective re- 
lation with God came purifications, ethical strug- 
gles, and religious observances, all of which sought 
to answer the question : How can a man get right 
with God? This passion was responsible for the 
prodigal expenditure of time and life in the age- 
long endeavour to find peace with God. It was 
back of the noblest ethical speculations of anti- 
quity ; but as the moral sense continued to develop, 
the feeling of alienation increased; and the need 
of a better knowledge of God developed a fourth 
element in the religious consciousness: a passion 
for a human life in God. This desire was not 
the cause of polytheism, but it was undoubtedly 



278 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

a contributing influence. The notion of an ab- 
solute and infinite God was, as we have seen, a 
very painful one, when unaided by a Divine rev- 
elation. It almost made the problem of right rela- 
tion insoluble, because it put God out of touch 
with experience. It is easy then to understand 
why primitive man broke up the idea of infinity 
into a number of parts. By associating them for a 
season with what was near, local and familiar, he 
seemed to bring God closer to human need. The 
tendency to make God in the human likeness was 
the final outworking of the religious impulse; but 
it was inevitable that the growing moral sense 
should introduce a disturbing element into this re- 
lation in spite of intense efforts to the contrary. 
Man was left in uncertainty, because there were 
always unknown elements, and uncomprehended 
relationships ; he seemed to dwell on the frontier of 
an unseen world, and the human spirit, in the ab- 
sence of severe ethical restraints, and sometimes 
in spite of them, was tempted to people this un- 
known region with the creations of its disor- 
dered imagination. It was a fruitful source of 
superstition. The Greeks confessed this sense of 
inadequacy in the Athenian altar to "Unknown 
Gods." Lucretius regarded the whole movement 
as an expression of degrading superstition; and 
the first Christian century felt the potent spell 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 279 

of the unknown in its fear of dsemons and its 
tyranny of elemental spirits. 

But in spite of its vagaries, the passion was 
the expression of spiritual need. Man needed to 
find a human likeness in God, if his relation to 
Him was to prove effective. It was a craving for 
an incarnation. Man wanted a Deity whose ad- 
vent was not a chance visit, but a permanent com- 
ing into the experience and life of the world. 

These four elements: the sense of dependence, 
the sense of alienation, the passion to atone for 
wrongdoing, and the craving for a human ex- 
pression of Deity, make up the religious conscious- 
ness of mankind, and were strikingly expressed 
in the quest for safe conduct, which was the dis- 
tinguishing feature of religious experience at the 
time of the westward movement of Christianity. 

The direct consequence of that age-long quest 
was to intensify the need for a virtue-making 
power, and to make the question of a right relation 
with God paramount. The problem was how to 
translate '''gnosis'^ into '^'dunamisf knowledge into 
power and precept into performance. The best 
thinkers of the age agreed that human nature 
could not furnish a moral dynamic. Lucretius 
and Seneca would have accepted Paul's diagnosis: 
"To will is present with me, but how to perform 
that which is good, I find not." Man could not 



280 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

rise above this position, because he was more or 
less aware that religious experience as a purely 
naturalistic affair was in its final stage of evolu- 
tion. Any further improvement must come from 
a fresh manifestation of God in human history. 

Thoughtful men of Paul's age were keenly 
aware of dependence but they had little confidence 
in the familiar methods of adjusting the human 
spirit to the requirements of the Eternal. And the 
characteristic longing of the time was for an ap- 
pearance in historic form of a personal adjuster. 
This feeling became acute in the last century of 
the republic. It was stimulated by the failure 
of the ancient political sanctions, and the outbreak 
of anarchy and civil strife developed a passion 
for a strong man who could set the world right. 
This passion for a personal force finally took the 
form of the worship of the reigning Emperor ; but 
its intensity is apparent in Virgil's Messianic 
eclogue. The monotheistic drift of the times 
tended to give a spiritual character to this as- 
piration. Men were looking for "the Still, Strong 
Man of the soul's need." That is why Paul's 
age was interested in a religion of power. 

How then did Christianity adjust itself to the 
requirements of the religious consciousness? The 
uppermost need of the times was for a righting 
power with God. This is clear from that check- 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 281 

ered history of human experience, that ceaseless 
conflict of moral passion and human perversity, 
so impressively described in the literature of the 
period. This need made a rehgion of redemption 
desirable above everything else. Man wanted a 
healer and a Saviour, rather than a diagnostician 
and a reformer. Above all he wanted assurance 
that God Himself had come in direct contact with 
human need. Nothing short of an historic mani- 
festation could satisfy the desire for a human life 
in God. Man did not want a chance visit; he 
wanted God to come to stay. What then had 
Christianity to say to this imperious need? 

If we have given a just account of the elements 
in man's religious consciousness, it ought not to 
be difficult to show how adequately the new re- 
ligion satisfied them. 

In the first place the need for a conception of 
God on Whom one might depend was met by the 
revelation of Divine Fatherhood. For centuries 
men had been trying to formulate this doctrine; 
the Stoics were especially zealous in this direction, 
but they could never be assured of it. What they 
really wanted was a conception of fatherhood 
based on redemption rather than on providence, 
and this, speculation could not furnish since an 
historic answer was required. No philosophic 
theory of God can satisfy human need; that can 



282 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

be met only by an historical revelation: an actual 
manifestation in human experience, and this was 
precisely what the Christian gospel offered. It 
revealed Divine Fatherhood based on redemptive 
power and sanctioned by historic performance. 
And this glorious revelation was sustained at every 
point by the dynamic Personality of Jesus Christ. 
The great Spirit of the Universe, the fundamental 
parent source, was manifested as the God and 
Father of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 
Christ's manifestation was the historic proof of the 
Divine love. His Presence was evidence of the 
fact that God was approachable and trustworthy. 

The revelation of Fatherhood through Christ 
brought out the second and third features of 
Christianity in respect of man's fundamental re- 
ligious needs. On the one hand the gospel ex- 
plained the nature of the world's trouble; on the 
other hand it provided a way of reconciliation. 

The Christian doctrine of sin properly diag- 
nosed the world's spiritual distress, yet so far 
from producing discouragement, as lesser investi- 
gations usually did, it always made the diagnosis 
in connection with the offer of pardon. The sacri- 
ficial death of the Saviour was the basis for faith 
in the righting power of God. Salvation was not 
suspended on a bare word of forgiveness, but was 
made as realistic in its redemptive aspect, as was 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 283 

the sense of sin and need ; because behind pardon- 
ing love was the historic deed of the cross, and 
the issue of this was a justifying grace which gave 
the sinner a status with the Most High God which 
none could dispute. The cross of Christ forever 
settled the question of adjustment. It was the 
end of the quest for safe conduct. 

But God's grace did something more than this. 
Not only did it justify the sinner but it also 
adopted him into the Divine family; and through 
the renewing and transforming energies of the 
Holy Spirit made progress in hohness possible, 
even in the face of the opposition of the flesh, and 
the increasing complications of life. And back of 
the several stages of this experience was the 
Divine purpose, which convinced man that God 
had come into human life to stay. 

And this satisfied the fourth element of spiritual 
desire, namely the hunger for a human life in 
God. The incarnation of God in Christ proved 
the truth of the gospel; it was evidence that the 
Eternal God had come into man's life as an abid- 
ing power; and the experience of the first cen- 
tury, the creation of the Christian community — 
the purity of its hfe and fidelity of its testimony 
under manifold trials and temptations — shows bet- 
ter than anything in that age, the effectiveness of 
the new rehgion. Christianity began in history, 



284. THE RELIGION OF POWER 

it made history, and it promised historic fruits 
in the future. All that had been dimly discerned 
or consciously realised of human need in the age- 
long quest for safe conduct was adequately ful- 
filled in Jesus Christ. The coming of the Saviour 
was a fresh beginning in the history of the race. 

Christ is related to man's spiritual needs as food 
is to appetite. Truly He is the bread of life. All 
that was needed to estabish a new life, or a new 
creation as Paul called it, was to bring man's 
spiritual appetites into relation with Jesus. This 
was accomphshed in the first century, and de- 
veloped an experience which neither the demands 
of intelligence nor the growing opposition of the 
world could falsify or destroy. So far then as 
the first century was concerned, viewed as having 
desires and passions that were common to pre- 
ceding centuries, Christianity was adequate, and 
as such was the final religion. 

And it is the final religion for us, unless it can 
be shown that the spiritual needs of mankind have 
changed since those days. If the religion of the 
New Testament was adequate for the first cen- 
tury, it is adequate for the twentieth century, un- 
less it can be proved that man's religious require- 
ments have been altered by the progress of civi- 
lisation. 

There is a general impression manifest in 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 285 

modem opinion and behaviour that would lead 
one to suppose that man's spiritual requirements 
are different from those of the past ages ; and that 
if it cannot be maintained that the modern man has 
outgrown Christianity, at least it can be said that 
he can afford to reject or modify much that was 
of value to past centuries. Two things, however, 
must be distinguished: The attitude towards the 
fundamental historical significance of Christianity 
is one thing; the attitude towards theological in- 
terpretations and systems of later centuries is 
quite another thing. Every thoughtful man must 
interpret truth in terms that he can understand. 
Every age has its own way of thinking about ulti- 
mate questions; and the disposition to think of 
Christianity in present day concepts need not 
necessarily lead to the rejection of, or indifference 
to, fundamental historical revelations. Few men 
are capable of holding a complete system of re- 
ligious truth; the best most of them can do is to 
have a few first class convictions on essential 
points; and assuredly we cannot make the under- 
standing and acceptance of great theological sys- 
tems the condition of a valid faith in the historic 
facts of Christianity. 

But unfortunately the modern man imagines 
that because he can neither understand nor hold 
complete and systematic views of religion, he must 



286 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

necessarily reject or be indifferent to the funda- 
mental historic significance of Christianity as it 
is revealed in the New Testament. He becomes a 
religious impressionist, selecting what he likes and 
rejecting what he disHkes, and justifies this course, 
when he thinks of it at all, on the ground that some- 
how he has attained to such a pitch of develop- 
ment that he no longer needs the stabilising influ- 
ence of the great past; and this tendency is the 
result of the pecuhar temperament of the modern 
world. 

For the past four hundred years the world has 
been steadily drifting away from a spiritual view 
of hfe. The renaissance has been the decisive 
factor in modem civilisation. The revival of learn- 
ing has had a larger influence on modem opinion 
than the Protestant reformation ; in fact the union 
of the Protestant principle of the right of private 
judgment with the freedom of the renaissance is 
responsible for present day indifference to all 
forms of authority; for the popular contempt of 
the great past, and particularly for the vitiated 
notion of truth which identifies reality with con- 
sequences, and makes every man the arbiter of 
his own destiny. The unregulated individualism 
of the modern world is a symptom of a deeper 
thing — of an altered conception of values. 

This altered conception of values is directly 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 28T 

traceable to the age of humanism. The renais- 
sance was the rebirth of man. It was man's fresh 
discovery of himself, it was also his fresh discovery 
of this world. The past centuries had for the 
most part been God-centred ; succeeding centuries 
have very largely been man-centred. Religion v/ as 
the all but exclusive interest of the world before 
the revival of learning; it cannot be maintained 
that it has been the predominant interest since. 
Before the renaissance man's chief concern was 
safe conduct. He did not feel altogether comfort- 
able in this world; there were elements in his ex- 
perience that reminded him that he was a stranger 
and a pilgrim, and the interests of the soul were 
paramount. Since the renaissance man has suc- 
ceeded in making himself fairly well at home in 
this world. Prior to the revival of learning man 
was dominated by the Hebrew ideal of religious 
exclusiveness : religion was his chief concern, and 
his business not so much to be at home in the 
world as to get through it with credit; the era 
since the renaissance has been dominated by the 
Greek spirit of humanism. In the former case the 
ideal of the chief good was one and simple: to 
enjoy the favour of God was the supreme good; 
in the latter case the ideal of the chief good is 
once more composite. Religion was still impor- 
tant, but other things such as science, art, litera- 



288 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

ture, philosophy, politics, worldly position, in one 
word civilisation, were equally important. In the 
first instance the world was dominated by the 
Hebrew ideal of the safe life; in the second in- 
stance by the Greek ideal of the complete life. 

The element of wonder which in past ages used 
to illuminate the religious experience, has for more 
than four hundred years increasingly centred it- 
self on man: on his doings and misdoings, his 
inventions and discoveries; his achievements and 
attainments; until it may be said of the modern 
what Carlyle said of the Greek, that "he is far 
more at home in Zion than he has any right to 
be." 

The modern man has become so accustomed to 
the development and enjoyment of the material 
estate that he has forgotten his real relation to it. 
He is in reality a tenant, but he acts as if he owned 
it. His tenancy is limited at that, and in spite 
of his deep satisfaction with this present world, 
he is just as much a stranger and pilgrim as were 
his ancestors, only he does not know it — yet. To 
one who takes a long view of life there is some- 
thing profoundly pathetic in the present day com- 
placency. One hundred years hence all that will 
be left of this proud complex of material posses- 
sion and restless desire, so far as we are concerned, 



k 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 289 

will be a number of spiritual entities we call souls 
face to face with the eternal God. 

The present age differs in many important par- 
ticulars from past ages, but the difference is not 
so great as some suppose. In science and inven- 
tion, in the exploitation and development of the 
material estate, and in the cultivation of its pro- 
ductive resources the age excels all past times. 
But it cannot be maintained that our intellectual 
and moral progress has kept pace with material 
development. Our distinctive achievements be- 
long to the externals of life ; they do not materially 
alter the inner constitution of mankind. The 
things that make for the cultivation of the mind 
and spirit are inlierited from the past. We still 
go to Greece for the best philosophy ; to Rome for 
our laws, and to the renaissance for our artistic 
and literary ideals; and apart from scientific and 
material achievements, everything we have of re- 
ligion, culture, and civilisation came from the past. 
The modem world is penny-wise-and-pound-fool- 
ish. It ranks the achievements of civilisation above 
the transforming power of true religion, because 
its interest is chiefly in this world. But civilisa- 
tion is not the same thing as progress. Civilisa- 
tion deals with the externals of life, but no more 
alters the inner constitution of human nature than 
clothes can transform character. Still the modern 



S90 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

man imagines that because he is successful in the 
control of material forces, he must have outgrown 
the needs of past ages; and nowhere is this delu- 
sion more common than in current opinions on 
religion. 

Socrates used to say of the craftsmen of his 
day that "they did as a rule know something 
about their own trades, but unfortunately on the 
strength of this bit of knowledge, they fancied that 
they knew a great many other things of which 
they were ignorant, such, for instance, as how to 
govern an empire." ^ And many a modem thinks 
that because he can make a tin can better than his 
neighbour, he is capable of settling the affairs of 
the universe. The church today is suffering from 
lay exploitation ; from the irresponsible attentions 
of many whose only claim to notice is that they 
have made a success in a material direction. Such 
men never suspect their fallibility ; neither do they 
question their attitude towards religion. They act 
as if somehow their fundamental spiritual needs 
were different from those of past ages, and en- 
deavour to begin the religious experience de novOj 
without the regulative influence of the great past. 
The age is suffering from what Hugh Black calls 
"unregulated idealism." It is passionate, hopeful, 

^Burnet: "Greek Philosophy from Thales to Plato/* 
p. 136. 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 291 

enthusiastic — jSne qualities in any age; but it is 
singularly lacking in straightforward common 
sense views of human nature. This peculiar tem- 
perament usually issues in a demand, if not for a 
new religion, at least for a Christianity modified to 
suit the requirements of an augmented sense of 
personal importance. The old-fashioned man was 
content to remain subordinate to God ; the man of 
the present day desires an equal partnership. With 
one religion means the service of God by man; 
with the other the service of man by God. And 
the difference at bottom is one of values. One 
derives his notion of value from his relation to 
God; the other values God in relation to human 
enterprises. 

But there is another side to this question. Pres- 
ent day society is becoming aware of instability 
in spiritual matters. The century that has excelled 
past ages in the realisation of material desires, 
is distinguished by a soul discomfort that is al- 
most as acute as that of the first century. There 
is a feeling of unrest abroad. The discontents of 
today are not those of poverty but of prosperity. 
The discontents of prosperity are spiritual. Many 
are becoming aware of the futility of success, of 
the emptiness of material possessions; full barns 
do not always make peaceful minds; and there is 
a soul hunger abroad which nothing tangible 



^92 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

seems to satisfy. The truth is the modern world 
is beginning to feel the need for safe conduct. A 
dim sense of a pilgrimage is coming in to disturb 
material contentment, and the modern man is not 
so much at home in the world as he used to be. 

This unrest, offspring of spiritual distress, al- 
though vague and inchoate, is still insistent in its 
attitude towards certain things. For many years 
the modem man has been very impatient with 
theology; it is now evident that he is beginning to 
be dissatisfied with philosophy; else how account 
for the popularity of such anti-intellectual notions 
as those of Eucken, Bergson and William James? 
How shall we explain the vogue of conceptions 
which set aside the intellect in favour of blind in- 
stinct or make the sole test of truth a conformity 
with immediate desires, except on the assumption 
that the modern man is beginning to realise the 
need for peace, and is in a special hurry to get it? 

And in the wild riot of religious congresses, 
mass movements, sociological pilgrimages, vice 
crusades and revivals which have distinguished the 
modern world in recent years, two things are clear: 
the modem man is very indifferent to guiding 
principles, and tremendously in love with power. 

The religious experience of the average man is 
for the most part made up of impressions and 
impulses, more or less influenced by mass move- 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 293 

ments, the meaning of which he does not under- 
stand, simply because he will not take the time to 
think them out. Up to recent times he did not 
believe it necessary; but signs are not wanting to 
show that he is beginning to think seriously about 
them. He is as impatient as ever with abstract 
explanations, but he would like plain answers to 
such questions as God, the soul and immortality; 
and in so far as he is conscious of having definite 
needs, he would like to know something of Jesus 
Christ and the way of salvation. In the main he 
lacks convictions, but at least he knows the need 
and the desirability of power. 

The want of power in the higher phases of ex- 
perience is the most characteristic sign of the 
times. Man's conspicuous successes in a material 
direction have served to convince him of the lack 
of power in the domain of the spirit. He sees 
power functioning in visible efficiency and in 
world civOisation. It is the magic word in busi- 
ness. And he demands it in religion because it 
is in spiritual matters that he feels the lack of it. 
He often looks for it in the wrong place; he is 
more interested in quantitative manifestations than 
in invisible and spiritual expressions. Still the 
impressive feature of the present situation is that 
many are in quest of spiritual power: some from 
egoistic and others from altruistic motives. 



294 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

The egoistic manifestation is seen in the syn- 
cretic tendency which mixes historical Christianity 
with other elements: such for example as Chris- 
tian Science and the New Thought cults. Man's 
complex needs tempt him to look for complex 
remedies. As much as he desires simplicity he 
finds it difficult to trust it in the religious world. 
This is a revival in a somewhat different form of 
the old ascetic impulse. In ancient times many 
sought to escape the opposition of the world by 
selfish seclusion, "far from the madding crowd"; 
in these days many try to escape the reality of 
life, by fleeing to these syncretic cults, and by 
surrounding themselves with a cloud of misty con- 
ceptions, think themselves free of the world's dis- 
tress. But this is a passing phase. There is 
no enduring power in the unreality of mental an- 
aesthesia. No religious enterprise founded on sel- 
fishness can last, and when conscience awakes it 
will make short work of these futile delusions. 

The altruistic quest for power is manifest in 
the social passion of the time. This is a noble 
enterprise, inspired by a desire to humanise social 
relations and moralise the forces that are respon- 
sible for much of present day misery. So far 
from being selfish, the social passion is the expres- 
sion of self-sacrifice, and is worthy of all com- 
mendation. Only it frequently makes the mistake 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 295 

of dealing with eifects rather than causes; is too 
much interested in a study of symptoms and not 
enough concerned with remedies. Undoubtedly 
the social passion is a by-product of Christianity, 
but at present it has all the defects of a movement 
led by novices, rich in idealism, but poor in ideas ; 
and serious minds are beginning to realise that 
there is something wrong with the social pro- 
gramme. In spite of the best intentions it re- 
mains a programme; it lacks power, and many 
are becoming aware of the need of a personal 
relation to Jesus Christ, as the sole condition of 
success in the social enterprise. The social needs 
of the age offer a very fruitful field for work, 
but the social passion is not a dynamic. That 
must be looked for in another region entirely. 

Where shall man look for power? What 
can give him a dynamic relationship with the eter- 
nal God? Obviously he cannot hope to get it 
from modern philosophy, for apart from such 
frankly anti-intellectual attempts as those of Berg- 
son and Eucken, there is little left but speculations 
concerning the problem of knowledge, and the 
capacities or limitations of the mind. Present day 
philosophy rarely touches the problem of reality, 
save in the interests of an unstable materialism. 
And even though it attempt to deal with reality 



^96 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

in a spiritual way, it is never concrete; it is always 
above the comprehension of the plain man. 

And if one turn to ancient systems, which, of 
course, means Greek philosophy, one will learn as 
Burnet truly observes that "Greek philosophy is 
based on the faith that reality is divine, and that 
the one thing needful is for the soul, which is akin 
to the divine, to enter into communion with it. It 
was in truth an effort to satisfy what we call the 
religicus instinct." ^ In other words Greek phi- 
losophy will teach us that our needs are spiritual, 
but the fact that the quest for safe conduct led 
into a blind alley is a demonstration of the futility 
of philosophy to satisfy them. Philosophy is a 
good mental discipline but it cannot set us right 
on such a question; its best service is to convince 
us that we have gone wrong. Philosophy is a 
barometer, and man needs a compass. It can warn 
us of weather changes, but it cannot direct our 
course. The Greeks went as far as possible in 
the direction of God; modem philosophy has not 
advanced a step beyond them; and it is probably 
too late in the day to expect any help from this 
source. 

One can get even less help from science, for 
science is exclusively interested in phenomena; 
it has no jurisdiction over the religious aspect of 

3 Op. Cit., p. 12. 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 29T 

life, because it cannot enter, as science, into the 
noumenal world. At best we must agree with 
Paulsen when he says that ** what ever temple 
science may build there will always need to be 
hard by a Gothic chapel for wounded souls." * 

Man's wounded spirit is in quest of this Gothic 
chapel. He will not find it in the domain of 
science; neither will he long trust himself to the 
half-and-half schemes that go by the name of 
"vitalism," "creative evolution," or "pragmatism" ; 
and there seems nothing left but to re-examine his 
fundamental spiritual requirements and see if 
after all he cannot find an adequate solution in 
historic Christianity. 

The rehgious needs of the modern man differ 
in no important particular from those of past 
generations. Under all the mutations of life and 
variations of culture he remains just man. There 
has been no essential change in the inner constitu- 
tion of man. He has the same imperious sense of 
dependence on the power manifest in the universe; 
the same feeling of not being in right relation to 
this power; the same dominant passion to find a 
righting power in some form of ethical struggle, 
and the same intense longing for a human life in 
God, which characterised past ages. If we frankly 
admit these things we shall be able to see how 

* "Ethics," p. 162. 



^98 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

man's fundamental religious needs are satisfied 
by the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The modern passion for power in life ought to 
enable us to understand the originality of Chris- 
tianity. It is the religion of power, of historic 
events and spiritual performances, because it re- 
veals the truth that God Himself has entered 
man's experience with a special redemptive pur- 
pose in view. Jesus Christ is a supernatuiral 
Person, whose power is shown in the creation of 
a new life and the evolution of a community of 
representative persons; and this power, working 
through the gospel, becomes intelligible when we 
understand some of its functions. Herein lies, I 
think, the immediate significance of Christian doc- 
trine. Undoubtedly the doctrines of Christianity 
are revelations of objective truth, but they are 
also descriptions of function ; they tell us how the 
divine power is working in individual experience. 

What is needed is a better understanding of 
the functional significance of Christian power. 
How does the power of Christ connect with hu- 
man desire? The connection is made by faith. 
Christianity is the religion of grace, because it 
suspends the futile struggle to attain salvation on 
the basis of human merit and freely bestows it 
through the merits of Jesus Christ. The gift of 
salvation is communicated to the individual 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 299 

through faith. Where there is faith there is 
power. Faith is the whole nature of man coming 
into contact with the whole nature of God. Faith 
in Christ means union with the life and power of 
Christ. There are three elements in it. 

First there is the element of intellectual recep- 
tivity: a willingness to assent to religious truth 
on testimony of others. Of course we are obliged 
to receive our information concerning the Saviour 
from others. In part it comes from the revela- 
tion of the New Testament, and in part from the 
force imparted to this revelation by the life and 
example of Christians. The facts of Christianity 
are of such a nature as powerfully to impress a 
receptive mind with their truth and importance. 

But all these facts centre in a Person. The 
facts and truths of religion exist in order to the 
revelation of a Personal Saviour; and from intel- 
lectual receptivity there develops the disposition 
to trust oneself to the power of Jesus Christ. It 
is impossible to contemplate His perfect life, to 
consider the unique character of His moral con- 
sciousness, and, above all, to open the soul to the 
healing power of His sacrificial death, without 
feeling that here in human history is the end of all 
spiritual quests. The sense of alienation from 
God, the feeling of confusion about our relations 
to the Infinite and Eternal, end with our accept- 



800 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

ance of Jesus Christ. We love persons, we trust 
persons, and we believe in persons. Christianity 
is the religion of a Person, and trust is the putting 
of the life with all its past, present and future 
needs into the hands of the Son of God. 

But there inevitably arises from the disposition 
to trust a third element, a willingness to accept 
the authority of Christ as the law of life and con- 
duct. Faith is the consent of the will to Christ 
as Master and Lord. It is the deliberate accept- 
ance of His personal dominion over life; and the 
natural expression, of course, is obedience. The 
man of faith does not stop with imitating Christ; 
he obeys Him, and he believes in His authority 
for the sake of those aspects of His personality, 
which man cannot imitate. 

These elements of belief, trust and obedience 
are always present in the act of faith; but they 
are not necessarily distinct in operation. Faith 
itself is one and simple ; it unites man's fundamen- 
tal needs to the purpose of God in Christ in such 
a way as to make the divine power effective in the 
individual experience. 

And it is from this point of view that we can 
realise the finality of Christianity. Man con- 
sciously or unconsciously believes in power; the 
modern world appreciates power in all directions, 
notably in the spiritual realm. But power is 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 301 

causal; it works in history and produces events. 
The supreme evidence of divine power in this 
world lies in the historic significance of Jesus 
Christ ; that power is communicated through faith 
in the gospel, and works itself out in vivid expres- 
sions of peace, purity and freedom in individual 
life. What more then can we want of finality than 
this? If our needs are the same as those of past 
ages, and the gospel is the same historically, what 
more can we require than a revival of faith in this 
historic dynamic? 

The supreme need of the time is a disposition 
to believe in Jesus Christ. The only practical 
way of testing the efiiciency of Christianity is 
to try it. If we defer belief until we have sci- 
entific certainty of the truth of all its propo- 
sitions, we shall of course remain unbelievers. If, 
on the contrary, however, we recognise the fact 
that Christianity appeals to the whole man, not 
simply to his intelligence but also to the heart 
and the will, then we shall be disposed to act as 
if it were true, and the result will be the convic- 
tion that it is true. The real question, after all, 
is as Browning puts it : 

" *What think ye of Christ/ friend ? when all's done and said. 
Like you this Christianity or not? 
It may be false, but will you wish it true? 
Has it your vote to be so, if it can ?" ^ 



5 " 



Bishop Blougram's Apology." 



302 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

The New Testament is full of such appeals. 
Faith begins with the willingness to venture on 
Christ's bare word. Consent with the will and 
you will be able to assent with the mind. Truth 
and obedience walk together, and the fruit of both 
is trust. The man who is willing to act as if 
historic Christianity were true will be able eventu- 
ally to appeal to the facts of his life against what- 
ever objections of a speculative kind that may be 
urged against it, because the disposition to obey 
Christ always enlarges the experience that faith 
begins. Religious experience has two sides; it 
is partly human and partly divine. The human 
aspect is concerned with facts, beliefs, and actions, 
with developed principles and convictions. The 
divine aspect has to do with a regenerating dy- 
namic, working into our lives, beneath the thresh- 
old of consciousness, certain spiritual potencies. 
The problem of religious growth turns on how re- 
ligious beliefs are to be related to these sub-con- 
scious potencies in such a way as to develop them 
into conscious activities. We make this important 
connection through faith. We assient to certain 
religious truths, we begin religious experience by 
consenting to act on them, and obedience calls up 
the divinely given potencies from below the thresh- 
old of consciousness, and they become conscious 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 303 

energies expressing themselves in character and 
behaviour. 

Such is the simple but effective way one may 
become experimentally acquainted with the Di- 
vine Reality which has been the object of every 
religious quest, and which in the dynamic Person- 
ality of Jesus Christ has adequately and finally 
made known its redemptive significance to a world 
in need of peace. 

The conclusion to which I wish this book to 
point concerns itself with the present duty of the 
Christian Church. That duty I conceive to be a 
very simple one. The modern church has many 
opportunities of directing and controlHng the by- 
products of Christianity; it is important that it 
endeavour to understand what these opportunities 
are and do its full share in their realisation; but 
it must not allow itself to be diverted from its 
main business; neither must it permit this age 
to forget what that business is. The fundamental 
duty of the Church is an adequate presentation 
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Unquestionably 
an adequate presentation would include its appli- 
cation to the social problems of the age; but there 
is a deeper aspect, fundamental to all the rest. I 
mean its dynamic significance. The present age 
is intensely interested in power; it sees power 
working in visible ways. It will eagerly believe 



S04 THE RELIGION OF POWER 

in spiritual power when it finds the church actively 
engaged in a passionate advocacy of the claims 
of Jesus Christ. The time is sick of judges and 
amiable religious philosophers, and is eager for 
the voice of the advocate. The gospel must be 
preached with a tremendous confidence in its efii- 
ciency and finality, but in order to do this we must 
know what the gospel is. Especially must we ap- 
preciate its causal significance. The church must 
instruct its members in the functional aspect of 
doctrines; it must explain the operation of the 
Christian dynamic in such a way as to put behind 
the faith of the individual the courage of rich and 
deep conviction. Our business in this life is not 
simply to hold or enjoy a faith, but to propagate 
a faith ; and faith can be propagated only when it 
is supported by ideas. The ideas of faith are 
expressed in its doctrines, the functional inter- 
pretations of the historic power in which faith 
centres. Ideas are the hooks of faith which at- 
tach themselves to the world's intelligence; they 
are the barbs of faith which goad the world to- 
wards a spiritual experience. We need a revival 
of the sort of radical thinking that goes down 
to the roots; and the deeper one goes into human 
history the profounder grows the conviction of 
the reality of Christianity. The weakness of 
present day religion lies in superficial opinions ; its 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 305 

real strength is in deep convictions ; but deep con- 
victions are impossible without root thinking, and 
root thinking is radical thinking in the best sense 
of that term. 

Christianity was conceived in the open — the 
thing was not done in a corner — and the church 
has nothing to fear from honest investigation. On 
the contrary, it must answer the characteristic de- 
mand of the age for evidence of its dynamic sig- 
nificance, and that answer I believe hes in an 
adequate presentation of historic Christianity. 

The twentieth century is as ready for a gospel 
of power as the first century was; and when we 
advocate that gospel with the intellectual vigour, 
passionate conviction and constructive energy 
which characterised that age; when we can give 
convincing evidence of its power in our own ex- 
perience; above all, when we can prove the loy- 
alty of our lives to the Lord of Glory by an 
enthusiastic personal service of the world's spir- 
itual needs, we shall again see the Christian Dy- 
namic functioning in history, as it did when first 
it illuminated the darkness and transformed the 
life of the ancient world. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abelard, 218. 

Abraham, covenant with, 264. 

Adam, on conflict between 
orthodoxy and dissent, 82-83; 
translation of hynm of 
Cleanthes, 107, 245. 

Adjustment, desire for, 226, 
22Q; method of, 170-171, 201; 
need of, 141-142, 147, 201. 

Adoption, 244. 

^schylus, purifies religious 
idealism, 83. 

Age, evils of, 179; Lucretius' 
criticism of, 122; moral pas- 
sion of, 141; need of Graeco- 
Roman, 177-178, 179; prob- 
lem of Roman, 141; receptiv- 
ity of first century, 181 ; Sen- 
eca's criticism of, 139. 

Alexander the Great, 99; ef- 
fect of conquests, 101, 105, 
115. 

Apostles, preach resurrection, 
195; testimony of, 76, 

Apuleius, condemns priests, 
74. 

Aristotle, inadequacy of sys- 
tem, 97-98; on conflict be- 
tween reason and passion, 
167; on oligarchic oath, 117; 
on reason and impulse, 95-97; 
on responsibility of state, 97; 



on virtue, 94-95; philosophy 
of, 93flF. 

Arnold, Matthew, the Scholar 
Gipsy, 140. 

Assurance, 266. 

At home in the world, 51, 81-82, 
123, 276, 292. 

Atomic theory, 110, 123. 

Atonement, 217; Moral Influ- 
ence theory, 218-222; New 
Testament doctrine of, 
226. 

Attis, 65. vid. Cybele. 

Augustus Caesar, 133. 



B 



Balfour, on double aspect of 
beUefs, 19-20, 185-186, 202. 

Basis, historic; demand for, 75- 
76. 

Beliefs, double aspect of, 19, 
20, 185-186, 202. 

Bergson, elan vital, 106. 

Bevan, "Friend behind phenom- 
ena," 245; on fear, 99; on 
Posidonius' aim, 128; on the 
Stoic, 108-109. 

Black, Hugh; quoted, 290. 

Brotherhood, possibility of, 101. 

Browning, on Christianity, 301. 

Bunyan, on Conscience, 231. 

Burnet, on Socrates' dcemon, 
89; on Sophist conception of 



309 



SIO 



INDEX 



goodness, 84; on spirit of 
Greek philosophy, 296. 



Carlyle, quoted, 288. 

Carneades, 103. 

Causal series, 19, 20, 22-23, 186, 
203, 215. 

Cause, in Christian experience, 
22. 

Century, last; of republic, 116, 
119, 120. 

Certitude, desire for, 54. 

Christ, attitude to claims of, 21 ; 
end of law, 232, 264; end of 
quest, 284; historic person- 
ality of, 180, 182, 183-184, 
241, 268, 282, 298; historic 
reality of, 181, 183; object 
of faith, 26, 299, 301; par- 
doning love of, 210; redemp- 
tive vs^ork of, 215, 251; views 
of death of, 218, 219, ^2'2, 224, 
282, 299. 

Christian Community, early, 57, 
198; growth of, 197; origin 
of, 182; proof of faith of 
church, 199, 283. 

Christianity, 56-57, 180, 184, 
213; adequate, 213, 274, 284; 
aid of cults, 67, 75, 76; an- 
swer to age, 172; causal sig- 
nificance of, ix, 18, 20, 21, 23, 
263 ; contrasted with cults, 76- 
78; converts to, 211; dynamic 
significance of, 305; function 
in life, 202; history in Acts, 
38; influence of Oriental reli- 
gions on justifying power, 
213; misconception of, 240; 
mobility of, 182; no eastward 



movement, 28, 31; opposition 
to, 41; power of, 189-190; 
progress, three periods, 39, 
40-41, 44; relation to history, 
21; spread of, 33-34, 35-37, 
67, 73. 

Christians, test of, 261. 

Church, admission to, 42, 211- 
212; apostolic, 198; develop- 
ment of, 42; open, 69, 76, 
183. 

Cicero, opportunism of, 128- 
129. 

City-state, 115; breaking up of, 
117, 120, 177; destructive cur- 
rents in, 99, 100, 102. 

Civilisation, and religion, 287- 
288; 289. 

Cleanthes, hymn of, 107, 245. 

Clergy, non-secular, 69, 76, 183. 

Cognitive series, 19, 20, 22-23, 
186, 202-203, 215. 

Conduct, safe, definition of 
quest for, 50; demand for, 
115, 120, 123; desire for, 81, 
83, 98, 209; end of quest, 232; 
ethical sanction, 154; goal of, 
189; individual problem, 151- 
152; Plato's quest, 93; prob- 
lem of, 177-178; Socrates' 
quest, 87; urgency of, 84. 

Conscience, attitude to inherited 
beliefs, 256; Bunyan on, 231; 
criticism of, 218; description 
of, 230-231. 

Conway on last century of re- 
public, 116-117. 

Corinth, 198. 

Cosmopolitan, party, 156; tend- 
encies, 153, 157. 

Creed, 16, 23. 

Cross, end of quest, 218, 232. 



INDEX 



311 



Cumont, on appeals to divini- 
ties, 61; on conflict between 
ritual and ethics, 74; on in- 
fluence of Orient, 118-119; on 
Isis, 72; on notion of deity, 
64. 

Cybele-Attis, 65, 75, 120; ab- 
sorbed by cult of Mithra, 66; 
brought to Rome, 65-66; cult 
of, 65 ; Magna Mater, 66. 



Dante, on Virgil, 134. 

Democritus referred to, 110. 

Denis, quoted, 141. 

Dependence, sense of, 276, 279, 
280. 

Dickinson, on distinguishing 
feature of Greek religion, 51, 
81, 82; on Plato's charioteer, 
247. 

Dill, on intermediate gods, 256; 
on Seneca, 139-140. 

Dispersion, Jews, of, 168, 171. 

Doctrine, description of func- 
tion, 33-35, 214, 298; func- 
tion of, 24-25; necessity of, 
242; relation to series, 22-23; 
two aspects of, 23, 203. 

Dogma, demand for, 104. 

DoUinger, 78. 

Dunamis, 179, 279. 

Dynamic, Christian, 214, 216; 
demand for, 178, 184-185; 
moral, 178-179, 210; spiritual, 
188, 190. 



Election, doctrine of, 262-266. 
Emperor, worship of, 280. 



Ennius, quoted, 116. 

Ephesians, epistle to; power of 
gospel described, 197-198. 

Epictetus, relation to Stoicism, 
134. 

Epicureanism, 110-111, 115, 177, 
188 ; as ethical quest, 101 ; ef- 
fect on Cicero, 128; form of 
spiritual experience, 55; In- 
adequacy of. 111; influence 
of, 33, 120; notion of life, 
110. 

Epicurus, atomic theory of, 110, 
123 ; devotion of Lucretius to, 
127. 

Ethical sanction, 97, 102. 

Ethics, conflict with ritual, 74- 
75; function of state in ref- 
erence to, 95, 98; views of 
Plato and Aristotle, 102. 

Euripides, age of, 83. 

Exile, effect of, 150-152. 

Ezekiel, on individual life, 151- 
152. 

Ezra, effort for national unity, 
153-154. 



Faith, basis for, 187; Christian- 
ity confirms, 21; connecting 
power, 298; elements in, 299- 
300; in Christ, 76, 243; justi- 
fying, 239, 243, 266; object 
of, 26; relation of philosophy 
to, 19 ; releasing function, 216, 
226-227, 243; stability of, 25; 
term of admission, 212. 

Fatherhood, divine, 281-282; 
revelation of, 282. 

Forgiveness, 244. 

Fowler, Prof. Warde; on Chris- 



312 



INDEX 



tianity in Roman world, 77- 
78; on Cicero, 128-129; on 
Lucretius, 121; on signifi- 
cance of Christianity, 372- 
273; on stasis, 117. 
Function, 24-25; kinds of, 215- 
216; relation to doctrine, 24, 
203-204, 214, 298. 

G 

Gentile, believers, vid. God- 
fearers ; relation to Christian- 
ity, 27, 33; sense of need of, 
228. 

Gildersleeve, on Marcus Aureli- 
us, 135. 

Glover, quoted on dcemons, 
257. 

Gnosis, 179, 279. 

Goal of hopes, 259; arrived at, 
266. 

God, attitude to man as sinner, 
225-226; fatherhood of, 244; 
human likeness of, 277-278; 
Jewish idea of, 148; Plato on 
reality of, 91-92; right rela- 
tion to, 49-51, 149, 151, 153- 
154, 159, 178, 189, 202, 271, 
277; Stoic conception of, 
107. 

God-fearers, 35-38, 6Q, 129, 134, 
148, 178, 182, 241; Schurer, 
quoted, 36. 

Gods, fear of, 122, 125-126; 
tendency to humanize, 125. 

Goodness, idea of Socrates, 86- 
87; of Sophists, 84; of Stoics, 
108-109. 

Gospel, atonement in, 217; at- 
tracts, 45; creative power of, 
198, 199; defines man's status. 



222-223 ; dynamic message, 
199; need to preach, 303. 

Gospels, the, 75; made neces- 
sary, 184, 190. 

Grace, justifying, 217, 222, 226, 
231, 234; religion of, 298. 

Greek philosophy, effect of, 
115-116, 120. 

Growth, problem of, 249, 254, 
258. 



Heraclitus, referred to, 106. 
History, efi'ect on belief, 21; 

"past ethics," 21. 
Holiness, progress in, 258, 2QQ, 

272. 
Holy Spirit, 254-255, 258. 
Howerth, definition of religion, 

50. 
Humanism, influence of, 287; of 

Seneca, 140; of Virgil, 131- 

132. 
Humanity, new sense of, 101. 
Human life in God, desire for, 

283, 297. 



Idealism, religious, 81; "unreg- 
ulated," 290. 

Ideas, relation to faith, 17; 
Plato's doctrine of, 89-90. 

Immortality, in Christianity, 
183; in Mystery Religions, 
68, 76; Lucretius' denial of, 
123. 

Incarnation, craved, 279, 283. 

Individual, importance of, 84, 
98, 151. 

Individualism, unregulated, 286. 

Isaiah, estimate of his age, 86. 



INDEX 



313 



Isis-Serapis, 63, 73, 75, 130; 
cidt of, 66-67. 



"Know thyself," Delphic max- 
im, 86. 



Jacks, L. P., referred to, 50. 

James, Prof. William; on fimc- 
tion, 215-216. 

Jerusalem, council of, 43-44. 

Jesus Christ, in Moral Influ- 
ence theory, 221; object of 
faith, 26; opposition to, 156, 
161; Person of, 173; Person- 
ality of, 282, 298, 303 ; Son of 
God, ix, X, 196; standard of 
goodness, 196-197. 

Jew, 27, 28; advantage of, 148; 
attitude to new faith, 39-40, 
142-143; dispersed, 41, 142, 
168, 171; failure of, 148, 262; 
sense of need, 229. 

Judaism, 42; aid to converts, 
211; contrasted with Chris- 
tianity, 183; influence of, 120; 
influence of Pharisees on, 
157; insufficiency of, 241; 
monotheism of, 142-143; rela- 
tion to gentile Christians, 42- 
44; superiority over cults, 56. 

Judaizers, 43-44. 

Justification, meaning of, 215- 
217; object of, 242; prior to 
sanctification, 253; productive 
function, 216; righting act, 
215, 217, 226, 229-230, 244. 

Juvenal, 72; condemnation of 
priests, 74. 

K 

Knowledge, Socratic notion of, 
87-88; Plato's notion of, 91- 
92. 



Law, authority of, 154-155; 
eternity of, 159-160; Ezra's 
use of, 154; function of, 162- 
164, 229, 263-264; obedience 
to, 160; Scribes as interpre- 
ters of, 154-155. 

Liberty, Jewish notion of, 27- 
28. 

Life, Christian, 242, 267; ideals 
of, 209. 

Logos, 106. 

Love, divine, 226, 228; pardon- 
ing, 210, 217, 222, 228, 241. 

Lucian, 62; condemns priests, 
74. 

Lucretius, compared with Vir- 
gil, 129-130; develops atomic 
theory, 123; on elemental 
spirits, 126, 258, 278 ; on Mag- 
na Mater, 60; on "Nature of 
Things," 121-122 ; scepticism 
of, 122-127; view of rehgion, 
124-125. 

Luke, account of early church, 
38, 42; humanism of, 76. 

M 

Magna Mater, 66; brought to 
Rome, 65-66, vid. Cybele. 

Man, aphorism of Protagoras, 
84; modern, 285, 290; rela- 
tion to world, 288; status be- 
fore God, 221, 225. 

Marcus Aurelius, teachings of, 
134-135. 

Mark, gospel of, 76. 



314 



INDEX 



Mayor, on Virgil's Eclogue, 
133. 

Megalesia, festival of, 66. 

Messiah, expected, 160; testi- 
mony of Peter to, 39-40; 
wanted, 28. 

Messianic Eclogue of Virgil, 
133-134. 

Meyers, Prof., quoted, 21. 

Mithra, absorbs cult of Cybele, 
66; cult of, 63-64; influence 
of, 66; Plutarch's reference 
to, 64. 

Moral dynamic, craved, 219, 
279. 

Moral inability, 219-220. 

Moral sense, demand on tra- 
dition, 165, 219, 277; devel- 
oped by the law, 170; grow- 
ing demands of, 165, 167- 
168. 

Monotheism, ethical, 56, 120, 
143, 150-151, 178; highest 
type of, 35; of God-fearing 
Gentiles, 36; in synagogue 
worship, 34-35; tendency to, 
64-65. 

Muntz on Adoption, 244-245. 

Mystery Religions, aid to 
Christianity, 67-68, 71, 76; 
difficult to interpret, 62; four 
kinds, 63; inadequacy of, 
183; influence of, 240; na- 
ture of, 67-69; popularity of, 
73; satisfies social needs, 70- 
71. 



N 



Nationalism, Jewish, 152, 160. 

Nature cults, 63. 

Nero, pupil of Seneca, 135-136. 



Obedience, element in faith, 

300, 302. 
Old Testament, book of early 

church, 75. 
Opportunism of Cicero, 128- 

129. 
Orient, effect on Rome, 118- 

119. 
Oriental religions, influence of, 

in time of Christ, 33; vogue 

of, 213. 
Orphic sects, teachings of, 90; 

notion of evil, 250-251. 
Osiris, 75. 
Ovid, on good and evil, 88, 222. 



Parties, religious, 155; secular, 
155. 

Past, debt to, 289; influence of, 
ix. 

Paul, appeal to Gentiles, 37, 78 ; 
belief in resurrection, 193- 
194; church organized at Cor- 
inth, 35; demands of Paul's 
age, 220-221, 222, 228-229; 
development of doctrine, 242- 
243; doctrine of new life, 
248-249; on election, 262-266; 
experience in Romans, chap- 
ter seven, 165-166, 229; on 
good and evil, 88, 232, 249; 
method used to show religion 
of power, 185-188, 202-203; 
two-fold function of law, 
162-164; vision of opportuni- 
ty, 172-173. 

Paulsen, on Moral Influence 



INDEX 



315 



theory, Q21-Q22; on need of 
religion, 297. 

Peace, as function of faith, 230- 
234; relation to pardoning 
love, 216. 

"People of the way," 57. 

Performance, demand for, 187, 
194. 

Perseverance, 267. 

Person, divine, in Christianity, 
188. 

Personality, craved, 142, 220; 
historic personality in Chris- 
tianity, 181-184, 190. 

Pessimism, 142. 

Petronius, condemns priests, 
74. 

Pharisaism, 193. 

Pharisee, 28; failure of system 
of, 162-170; idea of law, 159- 
160; of relation to God, 159; 
origin of, 29; party, 28, 155- 
157. 

Philosophers, pre-Socratic, 83. 

Philosophy, inadequate, 295- 
296; trend of, 140. 

Pilgrimage, of conscience, 147; 
of imagination, 147 ; of mind, 
147. 

Pindar, purified religious ideal- 
ism, 83. 

Plato, allegory of cave, 90-91; 
on conflict of flesh and spirit, 
247-248; doctrine of ideas, 89- 
90; ethical monotheism of, 
90; idea of knowledge, 91; 
inadequacy of philosophy, 92- 
93; influence of, 120; way to 
God, 93. 

Plutarch, on elemental spirits, 
256-257; reference to Mithra, 
64. 



Posidonius, aim of, 128; tem- 
pered Stoicism, 132. 

Power, altruistic quest, 294- 
295; egoistic quest, 294; for a 
life, 248; how communicated, 
210; knowledge is, 87-88; 
manifesting itself, 50, 81, 147 ; 
virtue-making, 93, 96-97, 179- 
180, 220; want of, 293. 

Prayer, religion of, 78. 

Predestination, 262, 265. 

Priest, power of, 126-127. 

Priesthood, non-secular, 68-69, 
76, 183. 

Prophets, duty of, 155. 

Protagoras, aphorism of, 84; 
teaching of, 84-85. 

"Pumpkinification of Claudius," 
137. 

Purpose, divine, 262-266. 

Pyrrho, founder of skeptical 
school, 103. 



Q 



Quest, effect on Paul, 201; ele- 
ments of religious conscious- 
ness revealed in, 275-276; end 
of, 284, 299; failure of, 171; 
goal of, 189; for holiness, 
241 ; phases of, 53 ; for power, 
241. 



B 



Reconciliation, 189, 222, 224, 

243-244, 247. 
Reform, inadequacy of, 141. 
Reformation, Protestant, 286. 
Regeneration, 247. 
Relationship, legal, 153, 159. 



816 



INDEX 



Beligio, 124, 127, 272. 

Religion, as "eflFective desire," 
50, 81, 147, 163; chief con- 
cern, 287-288; for Jew, 149; 
law free, 239; notion of, 50, 
57; of prayer, 78; test of, 
188. 

Religious, appeal, 179; convic- 
tions, 15, 17, 18, 22; con- 
sciousness, demand of, 285, 
297; elements of, 275-276; 
truth, desire for system of, 
19, 21. 

Remedy, demand for, 167. 

Renaissance, 286-287. 

Repentance, term of admission, 
212. 

Responsibility, new sense of, 
159. 

Resurrection, 40, 191, 195-197, 
199-200; of Christ, 216, 268, 
271; dynamic quality of, 197, 
199; evidence for, 190-191; 
fact of, 194; not a symbol, 
192-195; Paul's use of, 199- 
200; relation to Christianity, 
193. 

Righteousness, 214-215. 

Right relation, effective desire 
for, 50, 81, 147, 163, 277-279; 
to God, 209, 226. 

Ritual, conflict with ethics, 74- 
75; effect on religion, 59; 
popularity of, 59; power of, 
60-61; religion of natural 
man, 58; as screen, 82. 

Romans, epistle to; analysis of 
experience in chapter seven, 
165-166. 

Rome, state of society in, 33, 
116, 119; westward door, 
27. 



S 



Sadducees, 29-30; attitude to 
gospel beginnings, 40; atti- 
tude to Messiah, 160; cosmo- 
politan party, 156; interest 
of, 168-169; origin of, 156. 

Salvation, by ethics, 55; bylaw, 
160, 162; by legal obedience, 
55; by ritual, 55, 58, 78; 
earned, 211, 232. 

Sanctification, 247; object of, 
253; relation to justification, 
253. 

Sanday, Prof., on Romans, 223. 

Saviour, desire for, 281; need 
of, 142. 

Science, no spiritual aid from, 
296-297. 

Scribes, origin of, 154. 

Scriptures, Greek version of 
Old Testament, 35. 

Secularism, tendency to, after 
captivity, 152. 

Seneca, 134-135; character of, 
136-138; as consoler, 140; 
criticism of age, 139; Stoi- 
cism of, 138-140. 

Shorter catechism, on sin, 163. 

Sin, atonement needed, 228; 
conviction of, 228; doctrine 
of, 282; law defined, 162-164. 

Skepticism, 103. 

Social passion, 71, 294-295. 

Socrates, 85-89; dcemon, 89 
criticism of craftsmen, 290 
inadequacy of teaching, 89 
Stoic estimate of, 195. 
Sophists, age of, 83; on good- 
ness, 84. 
Sophocles, contribution to reli- 
gious idealism, 83. 



INDEX 



317 



Spirit, conflict with flesh, 247- 
249; views of Aristotle, 248; 
of Paul, 249; of Plato, 247. 

Spirits, elemental, 125-127, 256- 
258, 279. 

Spirituality, new sense of, 151- 
152. 

Stasis J at Rome, 118; defined, 
117. 

State, function of, in ethics, 95- 
96. 

Stearns, Prof., on justification, 
253 ; on Moral Influence theo- 
ry, 218 ; on sanctification, 253. 

Stephen, estimate of Christian- 
ity, 169; part in spread of 
Christianity, 40-41. 

Stevens, Prof., on election, Q64i. 

Stoicism, 115, 188; compared to 
Epicureanism, 110; effect on 
Cicero, 128; ethical move- 
ment, 73; ethical quest, 101; 
inadequacy of, 107-108; influ- 
ence of, 33, 120; intensifies 
unrest, 177; philosophy of, 
105-110; salvation by, 55, 

Stoics, 188, 195. 

Syncretism, Cicero's interest in, 
128; of cults, 62, 73; period 
of, 158; tendency to, 55, 104, 
213, 294. 



Tests of religion, 187. 
Theology, 16, 23. 
Thucydides, cited, 118. 
Trust, element in belief, 300. 

U 

Unrest in modem world, 291. 



Values, altered conception of, 
286, 291. 

Virgil, aid to Christianity, 134; 
contact with "terrible cen- 
tury," 116; contrasted with 
Lucretius, 129-130 ; human- 
ism of, 131-133; Messianic 
Eclogue, 133; service to age, 
133-134 ; spiritual sensibility 
of, 131; Stoicism of, 131-132. 

Virtue, views of Aristotle, 94; 
of Plato, 92. 

Virtue-making power, in Christ, 
199-200; vid. Power. 

W 

Way of life, demand for, 101. 
Westcott, F. B., quoted, 224. 
Wilson, Woodrow, quoted, 96. 
Worship of emperors, 133. 



Taylor, H. O., quoted, 122. 
Temples, public buildings, 69. 



Zeno, philosophy of, 104-106. 



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